be afflicted with anything so dull in this house."

Richard had settled himself in the easy-chair, and was looking
thoughtfully at various objects in the room, while the small-talk was
subsiding around him.

"Why, Mr. Field," said Mrs. Davenport, "you look as if you could find
nothing to suggest your story to you."

"On the contrary," said Richard, "it is the number of things that suggest
it. This newspaper here, that has arrived since I was last in the room,
has a column which reminds me very forcibly of the experience that I have
selected to tell you. But I think the most appropriate of all is that
picture." He pointed to the largest picture on the wall. "'Breaking Home
Ties' is its title, I remember very well. It is a replica of the original
that drew such crowds in the Art Building at the World's Fair."

While Richard was saying this, his wife had possessed herself of the
newspaper, and he now observed how eagerly she was scanning its pages.
"It is the financial column, Ethel, that recalls my story."

Ethel, after a hopeless glance at this, resumed her seat near the sofa by
Mrs. Davenport.

"There were many paintings," continued Richard, "in that Art Building, of
merit incomparably greater than 'Breaking Home Ties'; and yet the crowd
never looked at those, because it did not understand them. But at any
hour of the day, if you happened to pass this picture, it took you some
time to do so. You could pass any of John Sargeant's pictures, for
instance, at a speed limited only by your own powers of running; but you