of brick and stone at its back had been the "quarters" for the slaves.
It would no more do to rechristen it than to banish the ripened old
family portraits, or replace the silver-laden mahogany sideboard with
less antique things. The house had been added to from time to time,
until it sprawled a commodious and composite record of various eras,
but the name and spirit stood the same.

Saxon began to feel that he had never lived before. His life, in so
far as he could remember it, had been varied, but always touched with
isolation. Now, in a family not his own, he was finding the things
which had hitherto been only names to him and that richness of
congenial companionship which differentiates life from existence.
While he felt the wine-like warmth of it in his heart, he felt its
seductiveness in his brain. The thought of its ephemeral quality
brought him moments of depression that drove him stalking away alone
into the hills to fight things out with himself. At times, his
canvases took on a new glow; at times, he told himself he was painting
daubs.

About a week after their arrival, Mrs. Horton and Miss Filson came
over to inspect the quarters and to see whether bachelor efforts had
made the place habitable.

Duska was as delighted as a child among new toys. Her eyes grew
luminous with pleasure as she stood in the living-room of the "shack"
and surveyed the confusion of canvases, charcoal sketches and studio
paraphernalia that littered its walls and floor. Saxon had hung his
canvases in galleries where the juries were accounted sternly
critical; he had heard the commendation of brother artists generously
admitting his precedence. Now, he found himself almost flutteringly
anxious to hear from her lips the pronouncement, "Well done."

Mrs. Horton, meanwhile, was sternly and beneficently inspecting the
premises from living-room to pantry, with Steele as convoy, and Saxon
was left alone with the girl.

As he brought canvas after canvas from various unturned piles and
placed them in a favorable light, he found one at whose vivid glow and
masterful execution, his critic caught her breath in a delighted
little gasp.

It was a thing done in daring colors and almost blazing with the glare
of an equatorial sun. An old cathedral, partly vine-covered, reared
its yellowed walls and towers into a hot sky. The sun beat cruelly
down on the cobbled street while a clump of ragged palms gave the
contrasting key of shade.

Duska, h