fingers. No sooner did
she find herself in the midst of all the pictures, than whatever cloud
made her a little graver than usual took to itself wings and flew away.

Her pertinent remarks, her eager criticism, shrewd, observant, often
strangely to the point, aroused the attention of some of the bystanders;
they smiled as the pretty child and the beautiful girl walked slowly by
together. Judy's intelligent face was commented on; the pathetic, eager,
wistful eyes seemed to make their way to more than one heart. Hilda,
thinking of her evening with Jasper, was quite her old self, and people
thought what a happy pair the two were.

In the third room they suddenly came face to face with Rivers.

"What a bit of luck!" he said, going up at once to them. "Now, Mrs.
Quentyns, I shall insist upon taking you to lunch somewhere. Miss Judy,
how are you? what do you think of our national picture fair?"

"Some of the pictures are lovely," she replied.

"Some!" he retorted, raising his brows. "You don't mean to say you are
setting yourself up as a critic."

"Judy is an artist by nature," said Hilda for her. "Hark to her remarks
with regard to the two dogs in that picture."

"They are meant to move, but they are perfectly still," said Judy; "if I
drew them, I'd"--she puckered her brows--"oh, I'd see that they were
gamboling about."

A young man, who was standing not far off, turned away with a red
face--he happened to be the unfortunate artist. Bitter hatred of Judy
filled his heart, for some of the people who were standing near tittered
aloud, and remarked for the first time that the dogs were wooden.

Rivers walked with Mrs. Quentyns and Judy through the different rooms:
he was an art connoisseur himself, and even dabbled in paint in a
dilettante sort of fashion. He drew Judy on to make remarks, laughed and
quizzed her for some ideas which he considered in advance of the times,
for others which were altogether too antiquated for him to pass
unchallenged.

"Oh, how Stanmore would like to hear you," he remarked, naming one of
the pet artists of the New Art school. "Why, Judy, you are a democrat;
we should have no Academy if we listened to you, you little rebel; but
then, I forgot, of course you are a mutineer--you are true to your
character through everything."

Hilda scarcely listened as the young man and the child chatted and
laughed together, her heart was dwelling altogether in the future. She
fancied herself even now d