Burton turned to Ludlow. "Had they taken many premiums?"

"No; the premiums had been bestowed on the crazy quilts and the medley
pictures--what extraordinarily idiotic inventions!--and Miss Saunders
was tearing down her sketches in the next section. One of them slipped
through on the floor, and they came round after it to where I was."

"And so you got acquainted with Mrs. Saunders?" said Mrs. Burton.

"No. But I got intimate," said Ludlow. "I sympathized with her, and she
advised with me about her daughter's art-education."

"What did you advise her to do?" asked Burton.

"Not to have her art-educated."

"Why, don't you think she has talent?" Mrs. Burton demanded, with a
touch of resentment.

"Oh, yes. She has beauty, too. Nothing is commoner than the talent and
beauty of American girls. But they'd better trust to their beauty."

"I don't think so," said Mrs. Burton, with spirit.

"You can see how she's advised Mrs. Saunders," said Burton, winking the
eye next Ludlow.

"Well, you mustn't be vexed with me, Mrs. Burton," Ludlow replied to
her. "I don't think she'll take my advice, especially as I put it in
the form of warning. I told her how hard the girl would have to work:
but I don't think she quite understood. I told her she had talent, too;
and she did understand that; there was something uncommon in the
child's work; something--different. Who _are_ they, Mrs. Burton?"

"_Isn't_ there!" cried Mrs. Burton. "I'm glad you told the poor thing
that. I thought they'd take the premium. I was going to tell you about
her daughter. Mrs. Saunders must have been awfully disappointed."

"She didn't seem to suffer much," Ludlow suggested.

"No," Mrs. Burton admitted, "she doesn't suffer much about anything. If
she did she would have been dead long ago. First, her husband blown up
by his saw-mill boiler, and then one son killed in a railroad accident,
and another taken down with pneumonia almost the same day! And she goes
on, smiling in the face of death----"

"And looking out that he doesn't see how many teeth she's lost," Burton
prompted.

Ludlow laughed at the accuracy of the touch.

Mrs. Burton retorted, "Why shouldn't she? Her good looks and her good
nature are about all she has left in the world, except this daughter."

"Are they very poor?" asked Ludlow, gently.

"Oh, nobody's _very_ poor in Pymantoning," said Mrs. Burton. "And Mrs.
Saunders has her business,--when she's a mind to work at it."

"I sup