recognition of the
possibility, and from his sympathy with the girl in her defeat. Now his
conscience began to prick him. He asked himself whether he had any
right to encourage her, whether he ought not rather to warn her. He
asked her mother: "Has she been doing this sort of thing long?"

"Ever since she was a little bit of a thing," said the mother. "You
_might_ say she's been doing it ever since she could do anything; and
she _ain't_ but about fifteen, _now_. Well, she's going on sixteen,"
the mother added, scrupulously. "She was born the third of July, and
now it's the beginning of September. So she's just fifteen years and a
little over two months. I suppose she's too young to commence taking
lessons regularly?"

"No one would be too young for that," said Ludlow, austerely, with his
eyes on the sketch. He lifted them, and bent them frankly and kindly on
the mother's face. "And were you thinking of her going on?" The mother
questioned him for his exact meaning with the sweet unwisdom of her
smile. "Did you think of her becoming an artist, a painter?"

"Well," she returned, "I presume she would have as good a chance as
anybody, if she had the talent for it."

"She has the talent for it," said Ludlow, "and she would have a better
chance than most--that's very little to say--but it's a terribly rough
road."

"Yes," the mother faltered, smiling.

"Yes. It's a hard road for a man, and it's doubly hard for a woman. It
means work that breaks the back and wrings the brain. It means for a
woman, tears, and hysterics, and nervous prostration, and
insanity--some of them go wild over it. The conditions are bad air, and
long hours, and pitiless criticism; and the rewards are slight and
uncertain. One out of a hundred comes to anything at all; one out of a
thousand to anything worth while. New York is swarming with girl
art-students. They mostly live in poor boarding-houses, and some of
them actually suffer from hunger and cold. For men the profession is
hazardous, arduous; for women it's a slow anguish of endeavor and
disappointment. Most shop-girls earn more than most fairly successful
art-students for years; most servant-girls fare better. If you are
rich, and your daughter wishes to amuse herself by studying art, it's
all very well; but even then I wouldn't recommend it as an amusement.
If you're poor----"

"I presume," the mother interrupted, "that she would be self-supporting
by the time she had taken six months'