against her cheek a small gray kitten, with alert,
bright eyes. ``The original and only Spunk,''
he announced.

``What a dear little cat!'' cried Marie.

``You should have seen it--in the flesh,''
remarked Cyril, dryly. ``No paint nor painter
could imprison that untamed bit of Satanic mischief
on any canvas that ever grew!''

Everybody laughed--everybody but Billy.
Billy, indeed, of them all, had been strangely
silent ever since they entered the studio. She
stood now a little apart. Her eyes were wide, and
a bit frightened. Her fingers were twisting the
corners of her handkerchief nervously. She was
looking to the right and to the left, and everywhere
she saw--herself.

Sometimes it was her full face, sometimes her
profile; sometimes there were only her eyes
peeping from above a fan, or peering from out
brown shadows of nothingness. Once it was
merely the back of her head showing the mass of
waving hair with its high lights of burnished
bronze. Again it was still the back of her head
with below it the bare, slender neck and the scarf-
draped shoulders. In this picture the curve of a
half-turned cheek showed plainly, and in the