one of whom could have been used to advantage at this closing stage of
the year's course. Then the unexpected happened: on Saturday a stranger,
a woman, came to see me and asked to be engaged. It is this model that I
have been waiting for down-stairs."

Their thoughts instantly passed to the model: his impressive manner, his
respectful words, invested her with mystery, with fascination. His
countenance lighted up with wonderful interest as he went on:

"She is not a professional; she has never posed. In asking me to engage
her she proffered barely the explanation which she seemed to feel due
herself. I turn this explanation over to you because she wished, I
think, that you also should not misunderstand her. It is the fee, then,
that is needed, the model's wage; she has felt the common lash of the
poor. Plainly here is some one who has stepped down from her place in
life, who has descended far below her inclinations, to raise a small sum
of money. Why she does so is of course her own sacred and delicate
affair. But the spirit in which she does this becomes our affair,
because it becomes a matter of expression with her. This self-sacrifice,
this ordeal which she voluntarily undergoes to gain her end, shows in
her face; and if while she poses, you should be fortunate enough to see
this look along with other fine things, great things, it will be your
aim to transfer them all to your canvases--if you can."

He smiled at them with a kind of fostering challenge to their
over-confident impulses and immature art. But he had not yet fully
brought out what he had in mind about the mysterious stranger and he
continued:

"We teachers of art schools in engaging models have to take from human