the great principles that underlie all the arts in common.

"So that's what you call it--a marquise," Abner observed on a certain
occasion to one of the miniature painters. "This creature with a fluffy
white wig and a low-necked dress is a marquise, is she? Do you like that
sort of thing?"

"Why, yes,--rather," said the artist.

"Well,_I_ don't," declared Abner, returning the trifle to the girl's
hands.

"I'll paint my next sitter as a milkmaid--if she'll let me."

"_As_ a milkmaid? No; paint the milkmaid herself. Deal with the verities.
Like them before you paint them. Paint them _because_ you like them."

"I don't know whether I should like milkmaids or not. I've never seen
one."

"They don't exist," chimed in Adrian Bond, who was dawdling in the
background. "The milkmaids are all men. And as for the dairy-farms
themselves----!" He sank back among his cushions. "I visited one in the
suburbs last month--the same time when I was going round among the
markets. I have been of half a mind, lately," he said, more directly to
Abner, "to do a large, serious thing based on local actualities; _The
City's Maw_--something like that. My things so far, I know (none better)
_are_ slight, flimsy, exotic, factitious. The first-hand study of
actuality, thought I----But no, no, no! It was a place fit only for a
reporter in search of a--of a--I don't know what. I shall never drink