presented?"

"If she doesn't--which she probably does," said the Bonnie Lassie, "she
will find out something to her advantage when she sees me to-morrow. I'm
going home to 'phone her."

In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I saw
her from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowingly
lovely. At the door of the Bonnie Lassie's house she was met with the
challenge direct.

"What have you been doing to my artistic ward?"

"Nothing," replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove it
related the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the Taverne
Splendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist.

"That isn't Julien's father," said the sculptress. "He's only an
adoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he ought to. The real father,
so I've heard, was a French gentleman--"

"I don't care who his father was!" cried Bobbie. (The Bonnie Lassie's
face took on the expression of an exclamation point.) "I can't bear to
think of his having to do servant's work. And I told him so yesterday."

"Did you look like that while you were telling him?"

"Like what? I suppose so."

"And what did he do?"

"Do? He didn't do anything."

"Then," pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, "he's a stick of
wood--hardwood--with a knot-hole for a heart."

"He isn't! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the last."

"About what?"

"About taking money."

"I'm a prophetess! And you're a patroness. Born in us, I suppose. You
_did_ try to give him money."

"Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and paint. He
wouldn't even let me do that; so I--I--I offered to buy the picture of
me, and he said--he said--Cecily, do you think he's sometimes a little
queer in his head?"

"Not in the head, necessarily. _What_ did he say?"

"He said he'd bought it himself at the highest price ever paid. And he
said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just told him that
I hoped I'd see him when I came back--"

"Back from where? Are you going away?"

"Yes; didn't I tell you? On a three months' cruise."

"Had you told him that?"

"Of course. That's when I tried to get him to take the money. Cecily--"
The girl's voice shook a little. "You'll tell him, won't you, that he
_must_ keep on painting?"

"Why? Doesn't he intend to?"

"He said he'd painted himself out and he didn't think he'd ever _look_
at color again."

"He will," said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortab