e been so enchanted with his
new name for her. Indeed, a few years ago she had been described by an
only half-appreciative friend as "a splendid girl without a mite of
tact," and if she had succeeded in somewhat softening the asperity of
her natural frankness, there was enough of it left to lend a delicate
shade of humour to the name.

Artful Madge, then, was a student at the Art School, and a very
promising one at that. At the end of three years she had made such
good progress that she was promoted to painting in the Portrait Class,
and since her special friend and crony, Eleanor Merritt, was also a
member of that class, Madge considered her cup of happiness full. Not
that there were not visions in plenty of still better things to come,
but they seemed so far in the future that they hardly took on any
relation with the actual present. Madge and Eleanor dreamed of Europe,
of the old masters and of the great Paris studios, but it is a
question whether the fulfillment of any dream could have made them
happier than they were to-day. Certain it is, that, as they stood side
by side in the great barren studio, clad in their much-bedaubed,
long-sleeved aprons, and working away at a portrait head, they had
little thought for anything but the task in hand. The one vital matter
for the moment was the mixing and applying of their colours, and, in
their eagerness to reproduce the exact contour of a cheek, or the
precise shadow of an unbeautiful nose, they would hardly have
transferred their attention from the most ill-favoured model to the
last and greatest Whistler masterpiece.

The girls at the Art School had got hold of Ned's name for his sister
and adopted it with enthusiasm.

"If you want to know the truth, ask Artful Madge," was a very common
saying among them.

"Artful Madge says it's a good likeness, anyhow!" modest little Minnie
Drayton would maintain, when hard pressed by the teasing of the older
girls.

The incongruity of the name seemed somehow to throw into brighter
relief the peculiar sincerity of its bearer's character, and by the
time it was generally adopted among the students Madge Burtwell's
popularity was established.

It was well that Madge was a favourite, for in certain respects she
was the worst sinner in the class. To begin with, her palette was the
very largest in the room, and the most plentifully besmeared with
colours, and woe to the girl who ventured too near it! As Madge stood
before her ease