ff into a half-smile and she said, "You got things
awfully mixed up in that Rosa Bonheur booklet--why not stick to truth?"

"Truth," I replied, "is hideous, and facts are like some men, stubborn
things. But what was the matter with the Bonheur Little Journey?"

"You will not be angry with me?"

"How could I be?"

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"Well, you said my cousin was a conductor on the Lake Shore--you knew
perfectly well it was the Michigan Central!"

I apologized.

It had been two years since I had seen this woman, and not a letter had
passed between us. I had sent her a book now and then, and she had sent me
a sketch or two.

White Pigeon knows nothing about me, and never asked concerning my
history, which is a blank, my lord! Does the lily inquire of the
humming-bird, "Hast hummed and fluttered about other flowers?"

That is a charming friendship that asks nothing, makes no demands, needs
no assurances, never falters, and is so frank that it disarms prudery and
pretense.

I said as much.

White Pigeon made no answer, but flung a pebble into the lake.

And all I know of White Pigeon is that she was born in White Pigeon,
Michigan, and had left there ten years before to study art for a short
time in Paris. The short time extended to ten years.

White Pigeon does not call herself an artist--she only copies pictures in
the Louvre and gives lessons. "Not being able to paint, I give lessons,"
she once said to me. The first pictures she copied were sold to kind
gentlemen who make many wagons at South Bend, Indiana; other pictures went
to men who have interests at Ivorydale; and some have gone to the
mill-owner at Ypsilanti, for the mill-owner is interested in art, as all
patrons of the "Hum Journal" know.

White Pigeon lived at Paris because one must needs live somewhere, and
rich Americans sometimes send her their daughters to "finish." That was
what took her over to the Lake District--she was traveling with two young
women from Grand Rapids. And so these three women were doing Great
Britain, and White Pigeon was acting as courier, chaperone and instructor.

"I need 'finish,'" I suggested in one of the long pauses.

"I was just going to suggest it," said the lady.

"You say you are going to Southey's old home tomorrow--may I go, too?" I
ventured.

And the answer was, "Of course--if you will promise not to work me up into
copy."

I promised.

I found lodgings that night at "Nab Cottage." Being well