"You had better not have asked me here," he said to Romayne, in his
quaintly good-humored way. "I can't part with those pictures when I say
good-by to-day. You will find me calling here again and again, till
you are perfectly sick of me. Look at this sea piece. Who thinks of
the brushes and palette of _that_ painter? There, truth to Nature and
poetical feeling go hand in hand together. It is absolutely lovely--I
could kiss that picture."

They were in Romayne's study when this odd outburst of enthusiasm
escaped Winterfield. He happened to look toward the writing-table next.
Some pages of manuscript, blotted and interlined with corrections, at
once attracted his attention.

"Is that the forthcoming history?" he asked. "You are not one of the
authors who perform the process of correction mentally--you revise and
improve with the pen in your hand."

Romayne looked at him in surprise. "I suspect, Mr. Winterfield, you have
used your pen for other purposes than writing letters."

"No, indeed; you pay me an undeserved compliment. When you come to see
me in Devonshire, I can show you some manuscripts, and corrected proofs,
left by our great writers, collected by my father. My knowledge of
the secrets of the craft has been gained by examining those literary
treasures. If the public only knew that every writer worthy of the name
is the severest critic of his own book before it ever gets into the
hands of the reviewers, how surprised they would be! The man who has
worked in the full fervor of composition yesterday is the same man who
sits in severe and merciless judgment to-day on what he has himself
produced. What a fascination there must be in the Art which exacts and
receives such double labor as this?"

Romayne thought--not unkindly--of his wife. Stella had once asked him
how long a time he was usually occupied in writing one page. The reply
had filled her with pity and wonder. "Why do you take all that trouble?"
she had gently remonstrated. "It would be just the same to the people,
darling, if you did it in half the time."

By way of changing the topic, Romayne led his visitor into another room.
"I have a picture here," he said, "which belongs to a newer school of
painting. You have been talking of hard work in one Art; there it is in
another."

"Yes," said Winterfield, "there it is--the misdirected hard work, which
has been guided by no critical faculty, and which doesn't know where to
stop. I try to admire it; and I