latively high rents,
considering the lack of every modern convenience and comfort. They are
occupied by the younger and unknown artists, who cannot afford the
rents demanded in the more fashionable studio buildings, and the reek
of the oil stove and odor of cooking, mingling with the smell of paint
and turpentine, which pervades the hallways, indicate that they are
used as living quarters and work rooms combined.

The whole quarter abounds in cheap restaurants, places where one may
obtain a full course dinner, of sorts, and a small bottle of alleged
claret included, for an absurdly small sum; but a carton of biscuits,
a tin of sardines and a can of condensed milk are usually in evidence
on the littered tables of the studios, and, together with the odor of
stale coffee, bespeak an economy of diet which is incompatible with
the good work which comes of the well-fed body.

It was in one of these small rooms, perched at the top of the tallest
among the houses, that a girl lay on a couch, her face buried in her
hands, as the early dusk of a winter's afternoon softened the
tawdriness of the furnishings. A curtain of burlaps screened one
corner, hiding the toilet arrangements, which would have suggested
that the couch served as a bed by night; and the flowering plants at
the window, the arrangement of artistic posters and sketches on the
walls, and, above all, the neatness and orderliness of the room,
proclaimed feminine occupancy.

Her attitude was that of dejection, and she had not waited to remove
coat or hat before seeking consolation in the refuge of tears; but
there was determination in her expression and in the set of her
shoulders when she sat up and looked resentfully at the flat package
lying on the table. The imprint of a well-known publishing house was
on the wrapping paper, and in her hand was a letter from the same
firm, thanking her for the privilege of examining the sketches and
regretting that they were not fitted to their immediate needs. She
lighted a gas jet and re-read the letter, trying to derive some
comfort from the courtesy of the declination, but when she unwrapped
the sketches, she was forced to acknowledge to herself that they did
not seem so strong as when she hopefully submitted them a fortnight
before.

These two weeks had been a time of anxiety for Elizabeth Thornton, for
so much depended upon the sale of the sketches, the results of months
of labor, that she had alternately built castles i