with drawing-materials, then going over to a shelf began to rummage among endless books and papers for a suitable copy simple enough for him to start on.

“I wish to go in for the figure from life,” he modestly observed.

Jill fairly gasped at his audacity; she had understood him to say that he was a novice.

“How much,” she asked, pausing in her search and regarding him critically the while she put the question, “or how little drawing did I understand you to say you had done up to the present?”

“I haven’t done any,” he answered meekly.

Jill went on with her search again.

“We will commence with flat copies,” she crushingly remarked, “after that we will attempt the cast, and then—but there is ample time in which to think about such lofty aspirations.”

Mr St. John was not the mildest tempered of mortals but he sat mute under the rebuff and took the copy which she handed him without comment. It was an easy outline of a woman’s head, absurdly easy the new pupil considered it, and yet, to use his own vulgar phraseology after he had been working laboriously for ten minutes and had succeeded in rubbing a hole in the paper where the prominent feature should have been, it stumped him. Miss Erskine rose and stood over him with a disagreeable, I-told-you-so expression on her face.

“I can hardly accuse you of idleness,” she said, “you have been most energetic as the paper evinces. I think we had better start again on a fresh piece.”

She fetched another sheet of drawing paper and, taking the seat he had vacated, pinned it on the board, while he stood behind her, his brows drawn together in the old scowl, and a gleam of angry resentment in his eyes.

“The paper,” Jill continued in measured cutting tones, “was not wasted; it has served its purpose; for you have learnt your first lesson in art. It is a useful lesson, too, as it applies to other things that are worth mastering. The will to accomplish a thing is not the accomplishment, remember; it is necessary to the accomplishment, of course, but one must work hard, fight against difficulty, and defeat defeat. Now that you have acknowledged the difficulty we will see what we can do to overcome it.”

The young man stared at her with, it must be confessed, a certain amount of vexed amusement in his gaze. He wondered what sort of an old woman she would be, and finally decided that she would develop into an acidulated spinster.

“If you will kindly give me your attention,” she began with the new dignity which was so unbecoming to her, and so very unpleasant to her pupil, “I will—”

But here an interruption occurred in the welcome sound of someone mounting the stairs, followed by much shuffling and the flop of something heavy outside the door.

“Coals!” purred Jill with evident relief, and then he noticed that she was shivering slightly.

“Come in,” she cried.

The shuffling re-continued but instead of the appearance of the coals the sound merely heralded a retreat, whoever it was had commenced the descent, of that there could be no shadow of a doubt. Jill sprang up and went to the door, and St. John heard her remonstrating at some length with a person named Isobel, an obdurate person seemingly, and one who used the expression aint a good deal, and found some difficulty with her aspirates. After a long and subdued warfare of words the shuffling feet recommenced their descent, and then the door flew open and Miss Erskine appeared dragging in the scuttle. St. John strode swiftly to her assistance but Jill waved him peremptorily back.

“Thank you,” she said, “I can manage; it is not at all heavy.”

“No,” he answered, giving her a straight look as he grasped the handle, “not more than quarter of a ton I should say. Allow me if you please.”

Jill released her hold and watched him with limp resignation; that deft usage of her own weapons had been too much for her. It was ungenerous of him, she considered, and to do him justice he was rather of the same opinion.

“There!” he exclaimed, as he threw on fresh coals, and, going down on his knees, raked out the dead ashes from the lower bars, “it will soon burn up now. Had the cold upset Isobel’s equilibrium too?”

It was an unlucky slip, but fortunately for his own peace of mind, Mr St. John did not notice the offensive and unnecessary little word at the end of his query, nor, having his back towards her, could he see Jill’s quick flush of annoyance.

“I don’t understand you,” she answered curtly.

“I beg your pardon,” he remarked, nettled by her tone. “I hope you don’t think me impertinent; but I thought there had been a little difficulty about bringing in the coals.”

“So there was,” she replied, and smiled involuntarily at the recollection. Then she glanced at her art student as he knelt upon the hearth, and from him to the models showing up white and still against the dingy curtain which formed their background; Mars Borghese, the Apollo Belvidere, the Venus de Medici, and a smaller figure of the Venus de Milo; a good collection, a collection which both she and her father had loved and been proud of, and which had taken many years to gather together.

“You were the cause,” she continued, bringing her gaze back again to the kneeling figure in front of the grate; “Isobel’s modesty would not permit her to enter the studio with a strange man present; ignorance is always self-conscious, you know.”

He gave her a quick look.

“I am sorry,” he said, “to have been the innocent cause of so much perturbation. Hadn’t you better arrange with the Abigail to bring the coals a little earlier?”

Jill shook her head, but she was still smiling.

“You forget,” she said, “that I’m only the attics; it is a favour that I get them brought at all. I fear it will end in your always having to carry them in if you won’t let me; that and the stairs will soon put to flight your desire for studying art.”

He got up, and bending, began to dust the ash off his clothes with angry vehemence. Did she wish to annoy him, or was it merely that she was cursed with a particularly disagreeable manner? Jill feigned not to note his displeasure, but, returning to the table, resumed her seat and went on with the lesson as though there had been no interruption, explaining and illustrating her remarks with the care and precision that she remembered her father to have used when first instructing her. Mr St. John listened with grave attention; he was at any rate unaffectedly interested in the matter in hand, and had, if not the talent, an unmistakable love for art. When she relinquished the seat he took it and made a second, and this time less futile attempt. It is true that his drawing bore so little resemblance to the copy that it could not possibly be taken for the same head, nevertheless it was a wonderful creation in the artist’s eyes, and possessed a power and boldness of conception which the original lacked, he considered. He put his idea into words, and again Miss Erskine marvelled at his audacity.

“Not bad, is it?” he queried in a tone the self-complacency of which he did not even attempt to disguise. “I strengthened it a bit—thought it would be an improvement, don’t you know.”

“Yes,” agreed Jill, regarding his work with dubious appreciation, “character in a face is greatly to be