sness. Janet Cardiff
watched it with delight. "But why," she asked herself in
wonder, "should she have been so affected--if it was
affectation--with _me?_" She would decide whether it was
or was not afterward, she thought. Meanwhile she was glad
her father had thought of saying something nice about the
art criticism in the _Decade_; he was putting it so much
better than she could, and it would do for both of them.

"You paint yourself, I fancy?" Mr. Cardiff was saying
lightly. There was no answer for an instant, or perhaps
three. Elfrida was looking down. Presently she raised
her eyes, and they were larger than ever, and wet.

"No," she said, a little tensely. "I have tried"
--"trr-hied," she pronounced it--"but--but I cannot."

Lawrence Cardiff looked at his teaspoon in a considering
way, and Janet reflected, not without indignation, that
this was the manner in which people who cared for them
might be expected to speak of the dead. But Elfrida cut
short the reflection by turning to her brightly. "When
Mr. Cardiff came in," she said, "you were telling me why
a Daudet could not write about the English. It was
something about Sapho--"

Mr. Cardiff looked up curiously, and Janet, glancing in
her father's direction, reddened. Did this strange young
woman not realize that it was impossible to discuss beings
like "Sapho" with one's father in the room? Apparently
not, for she went on: "It seems to me it is the exception
in that class, as in all classes, that rewards interest--"

That rewards interest? What might she not say next!

"Yes," interrupted Janet desperately, "but then my father
came in and changed the subject of our conversation.
Where are you living, Miss Bell?"

"Near Fleet Street," said Elfrida, rising. "I find the
locality most interesting, when I can see it. I can
patronize the Roman baths, and lunch at Dr. Johnson's
pet tavern, and attend service in the church of the real
Templars if I like. It is delightful. I did go to the
Temple Church a fortnight ago," she added, "and I saw
such a horrible thing that I am not sure that I will go
again. There is a beautiful old Crusader lying there in
stone, and on his feet a man who sat near had hung his
silk hat. And nobody interfered. Why do you laugh?"

When she had fairly gone Lawrence and Janet Cardiff looked
at each other and smiled. "Well!" cried Janet, "it's a
find, isn't it, daddy?"

Her father shrugged his shoulders. His manner said that
he was n