you could send to me for her portrait, it would be different, for
you would receive full value, and at the same time assist a struggling
young artist."

"By Jove, I have it!" he exploded. "I have not committed matrimony
myself, but a lot of my friends have, and I am going to demand payment
for all the teething rings, caudle cups and other baby truck I have
been distributing, and make 'em all send their kids to you for their
portraits."

"Oh, Tom, you are a dear, but remember the size of my studio, and let
them come one at a time," she answered, laughing at his enthusiasm.
"Remember that two babies would crowd it dreadfully, and I wouldn't
know how to get on with even one."

"Never fear, you will pick that up fast enough, Betsy, and if you can
deliver the goods, your fortune is made. What do you charge for the
life-sized portrait of a baby?"

"Why, really, I haven't a fixed price," she answered, realizing that
he was in earnest. "As I told you, I have painted but two portraits,
and the payment for the last was the making of this gown. It was my
dressmaker's picture." He looked her over critically.

"Well, it's mighty becoming. I suppose that is equivalent to about
five hundred dollars, isn't it?"

"Oh, Tom! You are a greater baby than the sitters whom you propose to
send to me," she exclaimed. "If I become famous, I may ask that much
years and years from now."

"Young woman, you are to understand that you are 'personally
conducted' in your new field, and I am your manager. It won't do to
cheapen your work by putting a small price on it. Make 'em pay, and
they will think that you are great."

"Not when they see my studio," she answered, but his enthusiasm was
comforting to her.

The little studio was not satisfying to Elizabeth as she transformed
it into a bedroom by the simple process of bringing the bedclothes out
from their place of concealment and sliding back the curtain. The
unaccustomed luxury of the dinner had awakened old memories of the
comfort and daintiness which had been unknown to her in her later
life, and the rejection of her sketches had shattered the dreams of
acquiring them again, which had comforted her when she sent them out.
And Tom, bowling up the avenue in a hansom, felt uncomfortable at the
thought of her being in such a place alone and unprotected, for the
dinner had awakened memories in his mind, too, and renewed the old
longing for Elizabeth which he thought the years of separation