a letter precisely calculated to draw an unsophisticated
amateur mind away from any other mortification, to pour
balm upon any unrelated wound. Elfrida felt herself armed
by it to face a sea of troubles. Not absolutely, but
almost, she convinced herself on the spot that her solemn
choice of an art had been immature, and to some extent
groundless and unwarrantable; and she washed all her
brushes with a mechanical and melancholy sense that it
was for the last time. It was easier than she would have
dreamed for her to decide to take Frank Parke's advice
and go to London. The life of the Quartier had already
vaguely lost in charm since she knew that she must be
irredeemably a failure in the atelier, though she told
herself, with a hot tear or two, that no one loved it
better, more comprehendingly, than she did. Her impulse
was to begin packing at once; but she put that off until
the next day, and wrote two or three letters instead.
One was to John Kendal. This is the whole of it:

"Please believe me very grateful for your frankness
this afternoon. I have been most curiously blind. But
I agree with you that there is something else, and I
am going away to find it out and to do it. When I
succeed I will let you know, but you shall not tell
me that I have failed again.

"ELFRIDA BELL."

The other was addressed to her mother, and when it reached
Mr. and Mrs. Bell in Sparta they said it was certainly