We are told that pride must have a fall, and there came an episode in
Miss Sommerton's career as an artist which was a rude shock to her
self-complacency. Having purchased a landscape by a celebrated artist
whose work she had long admired, she at last ventured to write to him
and enclose some of her own sketches, with a request for a candid
judgment of them--that is, she _said_ she wanted a candid judgment of
them.

The reply seemed to her so ungentlemanly, and so harsh, that, in her
vexation and anger, she tore the letter to shreds and stamped her pretty
foot with a vehemence which would have shocked those who knew her only
as the dignified and self-possessed Miss Eva Sommerton.

Then she looked at her libelled sketches, and somehow they did not
appear to be quite so faultless as she had supposed them to be.

This inspection was followed by a thoughtful and tearful period of
meditation; and finally, with contriteness, the young woman picked up
from her studio floor the shreds of the letter and pasted them carefully
together on a white sheet of paper, in which form she still preserved
the first honest opinion she had ever received.

In the seclusion of her aesthetic studio Miss Sommerton made a heroic
resolve to work hard. Her life was to be consecrated to art. She would
win reluctant recognition from the masters. Under all this wave of
heroic resolution was an under-current of determination to get even with
the artist who had treated her work so contemptuously.

Few of us quite live up to our best intentions, and Miss Sommerton