little magic process right now. Presto—pass! You're a lay figure."

"A what?" faltered Darcy.

"A lay figure. Act accordingly."

"What does a lay figure do, please?"

"It doesn't. It's dead. It's dumb. Don't talk. You distract my mind."

For several minutes she walked around the girl, debating her from every angle with pitiless impersonality, and with the analytical eye of the adept in a school wherein attractiveness is often a personal and technical achievement. At the conclusion of this ordeal Darcy found herself perched upon a high-backed seat while the actress expertly daubed her face with make-up from a box kept for purposes of experimentation. Next the subject's hair was arranged, and her figure draped in the flowing lines of some shimmering fabric, chosen, after much profound consideration on Gloria's part, from a carved chest. She was then told to straighten her spine, and smile. Near her lay Gloria's hand mirror. Before the proprietor could interfere the girl picked it up and sat staring into it.

"Well, and what do you think of yourself?" queried her mentor grimly.

"I—I look like a bad joke," whimpered Darcy.

"You do. But if you cry I'll set you out on the fire-escape just as you are, for the neighbors to throw things at."

"I'm n-n-n-not c-c-crying."

"And don't grab, next time. Well-conditioned lay figures never do. Sit up! You're all caved in again."

With strong hands she prodded, bent, and moulded the girl's yielding figure to the desired posture. Finally she wheeled into position, several yards away, a full-length glass, and turned on an overhead light.

"Now. Look in here."

Looking, Darcy gave a little gasp of wonder and delight. Under the modulated radiance and with the toning down of distance, the harsh, turgid spots and lines of the make-up had blended into a harmonious ensemble. The face was that of Holcomb Lee's picture—almost.

"Oh!" cried Darcy hoarsely. "Could you ever make me like that?"

"No."

Darcy collapsed. "I might have known," she wailed.

"What do you expect for a nickel, in these days of depreciated currency?" inquired Gloria callously. "It isn't as simple as it looks."

"But if you can't do it for me—"

"I certainly can't, my dear."

"Then why did you let me—"

"But if I can't, perhaps some one else can."

"Who?"

"You."

"Me!"

"You, your own little, lone self, and no one else in the whole big, round world," declared the actress with electrifying vigor. "Thou art the woman."

"What must I do? How do I do it? What do I need?" cried Darcy in a breath.

"Grit."

"Is that all?"

"All? No; it isn't all. It's just a beginning. But if you think it's an easy one you don't know what the word means yet."

"Pooh!" retorted Darcy with another glance at the magic glass. "I'd cheerfully stand still and be stuck full of red-hot pins and needles, if it would make me look like that. I'll furnish the grit," she added confidently, "if you'll show me how to do the rest."

There came a gleam into her mentor's eye that the girl missed. "Very well," said Gloria. "Allowing that, let's make a start. Of all your little ambitions which one would you like to have fulfilled first?"

The girl pondered. "Dress," she decided presently. "I want to have beautiful, thrilling clothes, like a princess."

"The one princess of my acquaintance," observed Gloria, "looks as though she dressed herself backwards out of a mail-order catalogue. But that's beside the question. Clothes cost money. How much money have you got?" Darcy clasped her hands. "I'm rich," she announced triumphantly.

"How rich?"

"Awfully rich. Two thousand big, round, hard, beautiful dollars. Isn't that grand!"

"I don't know that it's grand. But it's good—with care."

"It's twice as much as I've ever made in a whole year of work on my silly little wall-paper designs." Darcy directed a resentful look at