d a daub of brilliant red on to her palette. She
gazed for a moment at the western sky, then turning to Dorian, she
asked:

"Do you think I dare put a little more red in my picture?"

"Dare?" he repeated.

The young man followed the pointing finger of the girl into the flaming
depths of the sky, then came and leaned carefully over the painting.

"Tell me which is redder, the real or the picture?" she asked.

Dorian looked critically back and forth. "The sky is redder," be
decided.

"And yet if I make my picture as red as the sky naturally is, many
people would say that it is too red to be true. I'll risk it anyway."
Then she carefully laid on a little more color.

"Nature itself, our teacher told us, is always more intense than any
representation of nature."

She worked on in silence for a few moments, then without looking from
her canvas, she asked: "Do you like being a farmer?"

"Oh, I guess so," he replied somewhat indefinitely. "I've lived on a
farm all my life, and I don't know anything else. I used to think I
would like to get away, but mother always wanted to stay. There's been a
lot of hard work for both of us, but now things are coming more our way,
and I like it better. Anyway, I couldn't live in the city now."

"Why?"

"Well, I don't seem able to breathe in the city, with its smoke and its
noise and its crowding together of houses and people."

"You ought to go to Chicago or New York or Boston," she replied. "Then
you would see some crowds and hear some noises."

"Have you been there?"

"I studied drawing and painting in Boston. Next to farming, what would
you like to do?"

He thought for a moment--"When I was a little fellow--"

"Which you are not," she interrupted as she changed brushes.

"I thought that if I ever could attain to the position of standing
behind a counter in a store where I could take a piece of candy whenever
I wanted it, I should have attained to the heights of happiness. But,
now, of course--"

"Well, and now?"

"I believe I'd like to be a school teacher."

"Why a teacher?"

"Because I'd then have the chance to read a lot of books."

"You like to read, don't you? and you like candy, and you like
pictures."

"Especially, when someone else paints them."

Mildred arose, stepped back to get the distance for examination. "I
don't think I had better use more color," she commented, "but those
cat-tails in the corner need touching up a bit."

"I suppose you have