normal, sensible life like other girls, I’ll let you take up singing again in a year.”

She hoped and believed that within a year’s time such a pretty and delightful girl would surely find something better to think about.

Ethel was helpless. She was exquisitely dressed, and she lived in great comfort and luxury, but she hadn’t a penny of her own to pay for lessons.

Artists, however—even young and undeveloped ones—are very hard to deal with, because they will not give up and be sensible. Instead of resigning herself to doing without what she wanted, Ethel did nothing but think how she could get at least a part of it. Being nineteen, and rash, and terribly in earnest, she was dallying with a singularly unsuitable idea.

“Hello, Lad!” she said, not at all surprised, and apparently not very much pleased, at the sudden appearance of a young man on that quiet path through the woods.

“Hello, Ethel!” he returned, and fell into step beside her.

She didn’t trouble to glance at her companion. She knew exactly how he looked, anyhow. He was slender and supple and dark, and handsome in his way—which was not her way.

There were times when the sleekness of his hair and the brightness of his smile and the extreme fastidiousness of his clothes exasperated her. There were other times when his talk about music made her see in him the one sympathetic, understanding person on earth. He had learned to read the signs, and to tell which sort of time it was; and he fancied that this was a favorable moment.

“Have you been thinking—” he began softly.

“Naturally,” said she. “I suppose every one does, once in a while.”

Young Ladislaw Metz was not easily discouraged. He, too, was an artist.

“Do you mind my walking with you, Ethel?” he asked patiently. “I came all the way out from the city on the chance of meeting you here, because I had something special to tell you.”

She thought she knew what he meant, and frowned; but when he began to speak, the frown vanished, and she sat down on the grass to listen.

Old Mrs. Mazetti was waiting and waiting in her chair by the window. All the bright spring afternoon had passed. The sky was blue no more, but faint and mournful as 

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