interest in what he was talking of. "I don't know--you
don't know--and I never yet met any man who could tell me, whether
American types are going to supplant the old ones, or whether they are
to come to nothing for want of ideas. Miss Dudley is one of the most
marked American types I ever saw."

"What are the signs of the most marked American type you ever saw?"
asked Hazard.

"In the first place, she has a bad figure, which she makes answer for a
good one. She is too slight, too thin; she looks fragile, willowy, as
the cheap novels call it, as though you could break her in halves like a
switch. She dresses to suit her figure and sometimes overdoes it. Her
features are imperfect. Except her ears, her voice, and her eyes which
have a sort of brown depth like a trout brook, she has no very good
points."

"Then why do you hesitate?" asked Strong, who was not entirely pleased
with this cool estimate of his cousin's person.

"There is the point where the subtlety comes in," replied the painter.
"Miss Dudley interests me. I want to know what she can make of life. She
gives one the idea of a lightly-sparred yacht in mid-ocean; unexpected;
you ask yourself what the devil she is doing there. She sails gayly
along, though there is no land in sight and plenty of rough weather
coming. She never read a book, I believe, in her life. She tries to
paint, but she is only a second rate amateur and will never be any thing
more, though she has done one or two things which I give you my word I
would like to have done myself. She picks up all she knows without an
effort and knows nothing well, yet she seems to understand whatever is
said. Her mind is as irregular as her face, and both have the same
peculiarity. I notice that the lines of her eyebrows, nose and mouth all
end with a slight upward curve like a yacht's sails, which gives a kind
of hopefulness and self-confidence to her expression. Mind and face have
the same curves."

"Is that your idea of our national type?" asked Strong. "Why don't you
put it into one of your saints in the church, and show what you mean by
American art?"

"I wish I could," said the artist. "I have passed weeks trying to catch
it. The thing is too subtle, and it is not a grand type, like what we
are used to in the academies. But besides the riddle, I like Miss Dudley
for herself. The way she takes my brutal criticisms of her painting
makes my heart bleed. I mean to go down on my knees one of these days,