ons
about his new sitter.

The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt
obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on
the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two
afternoons she gave up to the sittings.

During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance
about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each
sitting when they were alone together.

Spring had appeared very early in the year, and the public gardens and
boulevards were richly green. Chestnut-trees blossomed and gaudy
flower-beds bloomed in every square. The Salons opened, and were
thronged with an enthusiastic public, although the papers as usual
denounced them as being the poorest exhibitions ever given.

The Painter had sent nothing, being completely absorbed in finishing
Cora's portrait, to the utter exclusion of everything else.

Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It was one of the duties she owed
to the Lynxville fund, and which she diligently carried out. The Painter
bothered and confused her by many things; he persistently admired all
the pictures she liked least, and praised all those she did not care
for. She turned pale with suppressed indignation when he differed from
her opinion, and resented his sweeping contempt of her criticisms.

On the strength of a remittance from the prize fund, and in honor of the
season, she discarded the sailor hat for a vivid ready-made creation
smacking strongly of the Bon Marche. The weather was warm, and Cora wore
mitts, which the Painter thought unpardonable in a city where gloves are
particularly cheap. The mitts were probably fashionable in Lynxville,
Massachusetts. Miss Snell, who rustled about in stiff black silk and
bugles, seemed quite oblivious to her friend's want of taste; she was
all excitement, for her pastel portrait--by some hideous mistake--had
been accepted and hung in one of the exhibitions, and the girls went
together on varnishing-day to see it. There they met the Painter
prowling aimlessly about, and Miss Snell was delighted to note his
devotion to Cora. It was a strong proof of his attachment to her, she
thought. The truth was he felt obliged to be civil after her kindness in
posing. He wished he could repay her in some fashion, but since his
first visit to Miss Snell's she had never offered to show him her work
again, or asked his advice in any way, and he felt a delicacy abo