st important to say to you, and you almost gave me the
slip."

He seated himself very comfortably and lighted a fat, black cigar,
which he chewed as he smoked. "You know," he said, "that I was brought
up in Connecticut. I own the old homestead there still, and a tenant
of mine lives in it. I've got a place in London, or, I mean, my wife
has, and one in Scotland, and one in Brittany, a chateau, and one
in--well, I've a good many here and there. I keep 'em closed till I
want 'em. I've never been to the shooting-place in Scotland--my sons
go there--nor to the London house, but I have to the French place, and
I like it next best to only one other place on earth. Because it's
among big trees and on a cliff, where you can see the ships all day,
and the girls in colored petticoats catching those little fish you eat
with brown bread. I go there in the summer and sit on the cliff, and
smoke and feel just as good as though I owned the whole coast and all
the sea in sight. I bought a number of pictures of Brittany, and the
girls had the place photographed by a fellow from Paris, with the
traps in the front yard, and themselves and their friends on the front
terrace in groups. But it never seemed to me to be just what I
remembered of the place. And so what I want to ask is, if you'll go up
to my old place in Connecticut and paint me a picture of it as I used
to know it when I was a boy, so that I can have it by me in my room. A
picture with the cow-path leading up from the pool at the foot of the
hill, and the stone walls, and the corn piled on the fields, and the
pumpkins lying around, and the sun setting behind the house. Paint it
on one of these cold, snappy afternoons, when your blood tingles and
you feel good that you're alive. And when you get through with that,
I'd like you to paint me a picture to match it of the chateau, and as
many little sketches of the fishermen, and the girls with the big
white hats and bare legs and red petticoats, as you choose. You can
live in the homestead till that picture's done, and then you can cross
over and live in the chateau.

"I don't see that there is anything wrong in painting a picture to
order, is there? You paint a portrait to order, why shouldn't you
paint an old house, or a beautiful castle on a cliff, with the sea
beyond it? If you wish, I'll close with you now and call it a
bargain."

Mrs. Carstairs had been standing all this time with an unframed
picture in one hand, and a du