"You're awfully articulate, mamma! Now, if Mr. Wetmore were to criticise
that picture he'd draw a circle round it in the air, and look at it
through that, and tilt his head first on one side and then on the other,
and then look at you, as if you were a figure in it, and then collapse
awhile, and moan a little and gasp, 'Isn't your young lady a little too-
too--' and then he'd try to get the word out of you, and groan and suffer
some more; and you'd say, 'She is, rather,' and that would give him
courage, and he'd say, 'I don't mean that she's so very--' 'Of course
not.' 'You understand?' 'Perfectly. I see it myself, now.' 'Well, then'
---and he'd take your pencil and begin to draw--'I should give her a
little more--Ah?' 'Yes, I see the difference.'--'You see the difference?'
And he'd go off to some one else, and you'd know that you'd been doing
the wishy-washiest thing in the world, though he hadn't spoken a word of
criticism, and couldn't. But he wouldn't have noticed the expression at
all; he'd have shown you where your drawing was bad. He doesn't care for
what he calls the literature of a thing; he says that will take care of
itself if the drawing's good. He doesn't like my doing these chic
things; but I'm going to keep it up, for I think it's the nearest way to
illustrating."

She took her sketch and pinned it up on the door.

"And has Mr. Beaton been about, yet?" asked her mother.

"No," said the girl, with her back still turned; and she added,
"I believe he's in New York; Mr. Wetmore's seen him."

"It's a little strange he doesn't call."

"It would be if he were not an artist. But artists never do anything