no limbs like those now. Yet it is wonderful!
And this gem, you say, is in England?"

"Yes."

"Good! I am going there in a few days. I shall make a pilgrimage to see
it. Until then, mademoiselle, I beg you to break as many of my rules as
you like."

Three weeks later she found the professor one morning standing before
her picture in her private studio. "You have returned from England," she
said joyfully.

"I have," said the professor gravely.

"You have seen the original subject?" she said timidly.

"I have NOT. I have not seen it, mademoiselle," he said, gazing at
her mildly through his glasses, "because it does not exist, and never
existed."

The young girl turned pale.

"Listen. I have go to England. I arrive at the Park of Domesday. I
penetrate the beautiful, wild garden. I approach the fountain. I see
the wonderful water, the exquisite light and shade, the lilies, the
mysterious reeds--beautiful, yet not as beautiful as you have made it,
mademoiselle, but no statue--no river god! I demand it of the concierge.
He knows of it absolutely nothing. I transport myself to the noble
proprietor, Monsieur le Duc, at a distant chateau where he has collected
the ruined marbles. It is not there."

"Yet I saw it," said the young girl earnestly, yet with a troubled face.
"O professor," she burst out appealingly, "what do you think it was?"

"I think, mademoiselle," said the professor gravely, "that you created
it. Believe me, it is a function of genius! More, it is a proof, a
necessity! You saw the beautiful lake, the ruined fountain, the soft
shadows, the empty plinth, curtained by reeds. You yourself say you feel
there was 'something wanting.' Unconsciously you yourself supplied it.
All that you had ever dreamt of mythology, all that you had ever seen
of statuary, thronged upon you at that supreme moment, and, evolved from
your own fancy, the river god was born. It is your own, chere enfant, as
much the offspring of your genius as the exquisite atmosphere you have
caught, the charm of light and shadow that you have brought away. Accept
my felicitations. You have little more to learn of me."

As he bowed himself out and descended the stairs he shrugged his
shoulders slightly. "She is an adorable genius," he murmured. "Yet she
is also a woman. Being a woman, naturally she has a lover--this river
god! Why not?"

The extraordinary success of Miss Forrest's picture and the
instantaneous recognition of her merit as an