"sitting," was "too busy just that day." Later
in the autumn she would be quite at his disposal. In the autumn,
however, she was visiting, never ten days in the same place. Early
winter found her "getting her house in order," a mysterious rite
apparently attended with vast worry and fatigue. With cooling
enthusiasm, the painter called and coaxed and waited. November brought
the opera and the full swing of a New York season. So far she has given
him half a dozen sittings, squeezed in between a luncheon, which made her
"unavoidably late," for which she is charmingly "sorry," and a reception
that she was forced to attend, although "it breaks my heart to leave just
as you are beginning to work so well, but I really must, or the tiresome
old cat who is giving the tea will be saying all sorts of unpleasant
things about me." So she flits off, leaving the poor, disillusioned
painter before his canvas, knowing now that his dream is over, that in a
month or two his pretty sitter will be off again to New Orleans for the
carnival, or abroad, and that his weary round of waiting will recommence.
He will be fortunate if some day it does not float back to him, in the
mysterious way disagreeable things do come to one, that she has been
heard to say, "I fear dear Mr. Palette is not very clever, for I have
been sitting to him for over a year, and he has really done nothing yet."

He has been simply the victim of a state of affairs that neither of them
were strong enough to break through. It never entered into Beauty's head
that she could lead a life different from her friends. She was honestly
anxious to have a successful portrait of herself, but the sacrifice of
any of her habits was more than she could make.

Who among my readers (and I am tempted to believe they are all more
sensible than the above young woman) has not, during a summer passed with
agreeable friends, made a thousand pleasant little plans with them for
the ensuing winter,--the books they were to read at the same time, the
"exhibitions" they were to see, the visits to our wonderful collections
in the Metropolitan Museum or private galleries, cosy little dinners,
etc.? And who has not found, as the winter slips away, that few of these
charming plans have been carried out? He and his friends have
unconsciously fallen back into their ruts of former years, and the
pleasant things projected have been brushed aside by that strongest of
tyrants, habit.

I once asked