s I am. I should have to offer it first."

"It would be sure to be accepted; Mr. Ludlow thinks it would."

"Oh, yes; I know," said Cornelia, feeling herself get very red. "But I
guess I won't offer it. Goodbye."

Mrs. Westley kept the impression of something much more personal than
artistic in Cornelia's reference to her picture, and when she met
Ludlow a few days after, she asked him if he knew that Miss Saunders
was not going to offer her picture to the Exhibition.

He said simply that he did not know it.

"Don't you think she ought? I don't think she's looking very well, of
late; do you?"

"I don't know; isn't she? I haven't seen her----" He began carelessly;
he added anxiously. "When did you see her?"

"A few days ago. She came to say she could not take the time from the
Synthesis to pay me that little visit. I'm afraid she's working too
hard. Of course, she's very ambitious; but I can't understand her not
wanting to show her picture, there, and trying to sell it."

Ludlow stooped forward and pulled the long ears of Mrs. Westley's
fashionable dog which lay on the rug at his feet.

"Have you any idea why she's changed her mind?"

"Yes," said Ludlow. "I think it's because I helped her with it."

"Is she so independent? Or perhaps I am not quite discreet----"

"Why not? You say she didn't look well?"

"She looked--worried."

He asked, as if it immediately followed, "Mrs. Westley, should you mind
giving me a little advice about a matter--a very serious matter?"

"If you won't follow it."

"Do we ever?"

"Well?"

"How much use can a man be to a girl when he knows that he can't be of
the greatest?"

"None, if he is sure."

"He is perfectly sure."

"He had better let her alone, then. He had better not try."

"I am going to try. But I thank you for your advice more than if I were
going to take it."

They parted laughing; and Mrs. Westley was contented to be left with
the mystery which she believed was no mystery to her.

Ludlow went home and wrote to Cornelia:

"DEAR MISS SAUNDERS: I hear you are not going to try to get your
picture into the Exhibition. I will not pretend not to understand
why, and you would not wish me to; so I feel free to say that you
are making a mistake. You ought to offer your picture; I think it
would be accepted, and you have no right to forego the chance it
would give you, for the only reason you can have. I know that Mr.
Wetmore would be