lowing one!"

"Indeed it is!" echoed the worshipful and indignant Olivetta. "But
that is because of your position."

"I tried to send them away," said Matilda hurriedly. "And I told them
you were never interviewed. But," she ended helplessly, "it didn't do
any good. They're all sitting downstairs waiting."

"I shall not see them," Mrs. De Peyster declared firmly.

"There was one," Matilda added timorously, "who drew me aside and
whispered that he didn't want an interview. He wants your picture."

"Wants my picture!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster.

"Yes, ma'am. He said the pictorial supplement of his paper a week from
Sunday was going to have a page of pictures of prominent society women
who were sailing for Europe. He said something about calling the page
'Annual Exodus of Social Leaders.' He wants to print that painting of
you by that new foreign artist in the center of the page." And Matilda
pointed above the fireplace to a gold-framed likeness of Mrs.
De Peyster--stately, aloof, remote, of an ineffable composure, a
masterpiece of blue-bloodedness.

"You know my invariable custom; give him my invariable answer," was
Mrs. De Peyster's crisp response.

"Pardon me, but--but, Cousin Caroline," put in Olivetta, with eager
diffidence, "don't you think this is different?"

"Different?" asked Mrs. De Peyster. "How?"

"This isn't at all like the ordinary offensive newspaper thing. A
group of the most prominent social leaders, with you in the center of
the page--with you in the center of them all, where you belong! Why,
Caroline,--why--why--" In her excitement for the just glorification of
her cousin, Olivetta's power of speech went fluttering from her.

"Perhaps it may not be quite the same," admitted Mrs. De Peyster. "But
I see no reason for departing from my custom."

"If not for your own sake, then--then for the artist's sake!" Olivetta
pursued, a little more eagerly, and a little more of diffidence in
her eagerness. "You have taken up M. Dubois--you have been his
most distinguished patron--you have been trying to get him properly
started. To have his picture displayed like that, think how it will
help M. Dubois!"

Mrs. De Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she questioned
the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then she considered
an instant; and in the main it was her human instinct to help a
struggling fellow being that dictated her decision.

"Matilda, you may give the man a photograph of t