piled up against the wall like that?"

"Not very. I'd be glad to show them to you. Is your name really Eden
Bower? I've seen your letters on the table."

"Well, it's the name I'm going to sing under. My father's name is Bowers,
but my friend Mr. Jones, a Chicago newspaper man who writes about music,
told me to drop the 's.' He's crazy about my voice."

Miss Bower didn't usually tell the whole story,--about anything. Her
first name, when she lived in Huntington, Illinois, was Edna, but Mr.
Jones had persuaded her to change it to one which he felt would be worthy
of her future. She was quick to take suggestions, though she told him she
"didn't see what was the matter with 'Edna.'"

She explained to Hedger that she was going to Paris to study. She was
waiting in New York for Chicago friends who were to take her over, but
who had been detained. "Did you study in Paris?" she asked.

"No, I've never been in Paris. But I was in the south of France all last
summer, studying with C----. He's the biggest man among the moderns,--at
least I think so."

Miss Bower sat down and made room for him on the bench. "Do tell me about
it. I expected to be there by this time, and I can't wait to find out
what it's like."

Hedger began to relate how he had seen some of this Frenchman's work in
an exhibition, and deciding at once that this was the man for him, he had
taken a boat for Marseilles the next week, going over steerage. He