uare thing
to old Favel the picture-dealer, whom I had forced to take a lot at one
fifteenth the price, so I simply referred them to him."

"No!" said Miss Helen indignantly; "you were not so foolish?"

Ostrander laughed.

"I'm afraid what you call my folly didn't avail, for they wanted what
they saw in my portfolio."

"Of course," said Helen. "Why, that sketch of the housetop alone was
worth a hundred times more than what you"--She stopped; she did not like
to reveal what he got for his pictures, and added, "more than what any
of those usurers would give."

"I am glad you think so well of it, for I do not mean to sell it," he
said simply, yet with a significance that kept her silent.

She did not see him again for several days. The preparation for her
examination left her no time, and her earnest concentration in her work
fully preoccupied her thoughts. She was surprised, but not disturbed, on
the day of the awards to see him among the audience of anxious parents
and relations. Miss Helen Maynard did not get the first prize, nor
yet the second; an accessit was her only award. She did not know until
afterwards that this had long been a foregone conclusion of her teachers
on account of some intrinsic defect in her voice. She did not know until
long afterwards that the handsome painter's nervousness on that occasion
had attracted even the sympathy of some of those who were near him. For
she herself had been calm and collected. No one else knew how crushing
was the blow which shattered her hopes and made her three years of labor
and privation a useless struggle. Yet though no longer a pupil she could
still teach; her master had found her a small patronage that saved her
from destitution. That night she circled up quite cheerfully in her
usual swallow flight to her nest under the eaves, and even twittered on
the landing a little over the condolences of the concierge--who knew,
mon Dieu! what a beast the director of the Conservatoire was and how he
could be bribed; but when at last her brown head sank on her pillow she
cried--just a little.

But what was all this to that next morning--the glorious spring morning
which bathed all the roofs of Paris with warmth and hope, rekindling
enthusiasm and ambition in the breast of youth, and gilding even much
of the sordid dirt below. It seemed quite natural that she should meet
Major Ostrander not many yards away as she sallied out. In that bright
spring sunshine and the hopef