tening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers,
insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the
stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express
speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in
motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in
Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at
school, in a high sense, and improving her time. The sketch was
expanding into a carefully studied portrait bust and Moss was happy.

One day a fellow-artist came in casually, and they both squinted,
measured, and compared the portrait and herself with the calm absorption
of a couple of prize-pig committeemen at a cattle-show. "You see, this
line is shorter," the stranger said, almost laying his finger on
Bertha's neck. "Not so straight, as you've got it. That's a fine line--"

"I know it is!"

"And you don't want to spoil it. I don't like your fad for cutting down
the bust. The neck is nothing but a connecting link between the head and
the bust. Now here you have a charming and youthful head and face--let
the neck at least suggest the woman below."

"Oh yes, that's good logic, provided you're after that. But what I want
here is spring-time--just a fresh, alert, lovely fragment. This pure
line must be kept free from any earthiness."

"I suppose you know what you want; I won't say you don't. But if I were
painting her, I'd get that sweeping line there that ends by suggesting
the summer."

They talked disjointedly, elliptically, and of course mainly of the
clay; and yet Bertha grew each moment more clearly aware that they
considered her not merely interesting but beautiful, and this was a most
momentous and developing assurance. She had hoped to be called
"good-looking," but no one thus far (excepting Ben Fordyce) had ever
called her beautiful; and these judgments on the part of Joe Moss and
his brother artist were made the more moving by reason of their
precision of knowledge and their professional candor. They spoke as
freely in discussion of her charm as if she were deaf and dumb.

The painter, who had been introduced in a careless way as "Mr. Humiston,
of New York," turned to Bertha at last, and, assuming the ordinary
politeness of a human being, said: "I'd like to make a study of you,
too, Mrs. Haney, if you'll permit. I can bring my canvas in here and
work with Joe, so that it needn't be any tr