ought to him, ate the indifferent
food and drank the doubtful wine contentedly. A few days later he
heard singing when he knocked on Elizabeth's door for luncheon, and
recognized an old nursery rhyme, which he had not heard since his
childhood, and when he came in he found her seated on the floor with
Carlotta, in the midst of a collection of toys, which must have made a
decided hole in her advance payment.

"Is this the way you attend to your 'life work,' young woman?" he
asked, with mock severity, and she seemed a little shamefaced; but
when the waiter brought the luncheon, he found all three of them on
the floor, and Elizabeth not at all pleased with the fickle Carlotta's
preference for the house which Tom had built with the blocks. But
nothing could disturb Tom's good nature these days, for he realized
that Elizabeth was growing fonder of the child each day, and with it
all she seemed happier and more feminine. About a week after the
sittings commenced, he noticed that her hair was arranged in the
fluffy, loose way he had admired so much three years before, giving
her face more of the girlish expression it had lost, and a bright
ribbon at the throat relieved the somberness of her working gown.

"Why, Betsy, you are growing younger," he said, looking at her in
admiration, and she blushed in confusion.

"You mean my hair and the ribbon," she replied, with a little trace of
self-consciousness in her manner. "Well, you see, Carlotta is of a
race which likes bright colors, so I thought it would please her."

"And incidentally you have given me great pleasure," he said, smiling
at her, approvingly, and a song was in his heart as he went down the
stairs.

Sunshine is not abundant in a New York winter, and none of it enters
the northern windows of a studio; but Elizabeth's tiny apartment came
to have an entirely different atmosphere while the child spent her
days in it. The program remained the same as on the first day; but
Elizabeth employed so much of her time in petting and playing with the
child, that the portrait did not advance rapidly, although enough had
been accomplished to show that it promised to be, by far, the best
thing which she had ever done. The jolly luncheons were a joy to both
of them, and Carlotta always gave a crow of delight, which Elizabeth's
heart was beginning to echo, when Tom's merry whistle heralded his
arrival.

But on the day he had noticed the change in Elizabeth's hair, there
was a m