the embrace of the laughing and crying woman.

"Oh, Charles, you did come home; you did come home, didn't you?" she was crying.

Charles broke in volubly. "Well, I should say I did. What did you expect? Have I ever impressed you as a man who would neglect his family?" After which, with the look of one who has put his accusers in the wrong, he rescued himself from his wife's emphatic embraces, held her off for a moment with a look of real fondness, and then brushed her with his lips, first on one cheek and then upon the other.

"Dad-dee!" clamored the children in chorus. "Daddee!" Yet it was noticeable that they did not presume to rush upon their father, but flung their voices before them, experimentally, as it were.

"Well, well, las ninas" (las ninas being the Spanish for children), the father exclaimed, his piercing dark eyes upon them with delight and displeasure mingling. "Aren't you going to give me a hug? Your mother nearly strangles me, and you stand off eyeing me as if I were a new species."

At the open arms of invitation, both of the children plunged unhesitatingly; but their reception was brief.

"Run away now, father is tired," the nervous-looking man proclaimed presently, straightening his shoulders, while he sniffed the atmosphere. "Dinner, eh? Gods and goats, but I am hungry!"

Rose led the little procession proudly back to the table, drawing out her husband's chair for him, hovering over him, smoothing his hair, unfolding his napkin, and stooping to place a fresh kiss upon his fine, high, but narrow brow.

"That will do now; that will do now," he chided, with an air of having indulged a foolishly doting woman long enough. "For goodness' sake, Rose, give me something to eat."

His wife, still upon her feet, carried him the platter from which the family had been served. Charles condemned it with a glance.

"Isn't there something fresh you could give me? Something that hasn't been—pawed over?"

His tone was eloquent of sensibilities outraged, and his dark eyes, having first flashed a reproach upon his wife, swept the circle with a look of expected comprehension in them, as if he knew that all would understand the delicacies of the artistic temperament.

"Why, yes," admitted Rose, without a sign of resentment. "I can get you something fresh if you will wait a few minutes."

She slipped out to the kitchen from which presently the odor of broiling meat proceeded, while the artist coolly rolled his cigarette, and, surveying without touching the cup of coffee which John had poured for him, raised his voice to call: "Some fresh coffee, too, Rose, please!"

After this Langham leveled his eye on his brother-in-law and asked airily, "Well, John, how's everything with you?"

"Fine as silk, Charles," replied Hampstead. "How is it with you?"

"Never better," declared Langham. "Never saw such sunsets in your life as they are having up the Monterey coast. I tell you there never were such colors. There was one there in December,"—and he launched into a detailed description of it, his eyes, his face, his hands, his whole body laboring to convey the picture which his animated spirits proclaimed was still upon the screen of his mind.

As the description was concluded, Rose placed a platter before him, upon which, garnished with parsley, two small chops appeared, delicately grilled.

Abruptly ceasing conversation, Charles sank a knife and fork into one of them and transferred a generous morsel to his mouth.

"Thanks, old girl; just up to your topmost mark," he confessed ungrudgingly, after a few moments, during which, with half-closed eyes, he had been chewing vigorously and with a singleness of purpose rather rare in him.

"Sold any pictures lately?" asked John casually.

"No," said Langham abruptly, lowering his voice, while a look of annoyance shaded his brow. "I dropped in at the gallery first thing, but"—and he shrugged his shoulders—"Nothing doing! However," and he became immediately cheerful again, "Mrs. Lawson has been looking awfully hard at that Grand Canyon canvas. If she buys that, my fortune's made."

"And if she doesn't," observed Rose pessimistically.

"And if she doesn't?" her husband exclaimed with sudden irritation. "Well—it'll be made just the same. You see if it isn't! Oh, say!" and a light broke upon his face so merry that it immediately dissipated every sign of annoyance. "What do you think? I saw Owens to-day, the fellow who auctions alleged oil paintings at a minimum of two dollars each. You know the scheme—pictures painted while you wait—roses, chrysanthemums, landscapes even. Well, he offered me fifteen dollars a day to paint pictures for him. Think of it! To sit in the window before a gaping crowd painting those miserable daubs, a dozen or two a day, while he auctions them off. His impudence! If I had been as big as you are, Jack, I would have punched him."

"Fifteen dollars a day," commented Rose thoughtfully.

"Yes," laughed Langham, his little black eyes a-twinkle, as he clipped the last morsel from the first of his chops. "The idea!"

"Well, I hope you took it," his wife suggested.

"Rose!" exclaimed Langham, rising bolt upright at the table and looking into her face as if she had unwarrantably and unexpectedly hurled the blackest insult. "Rose! An artist like me!"

"It is the kind of a job for an artist like you," she rejoined stingingly, with a sarcastic emphasis on just the right words.

"Oh, my God! My God!" exclaimed the man sharply, turning from the table, while he threw his hands dramatically upward and clutched at the back of his head, after which he took a turn up and down the room as if beside himself with unutterable emotions.

John judged that this was the fitting moment for his withdrawal, but Langham's distress of mind was not too great for him to observe the movement and to follow. He overtook his brother-in-law in the studio-parlor, and his manner was coolly importunate.

"Say, old man!" he whispered, "could you let me have five? I'm a little short on carfare, and you'll be gone in the morning before I get up."

"Sure," exclaimed John, without a moment's hesitation, delving in the depths of the pocket from which he had produced the money for the rent, and handing out a five-dollar piece.

"Thanks, old chap," said Langham, seizing it eagerly and hastening away, after an affectionate slap on the shoulder of his bigger and as he thought baser metaled brother-in-law. He did not, however, say that he would repay the loan, and Hampstead did not remark that it was the last gold coin in his pocket and that he should have no more till pay day, ten days hence.

John let his admiration for the assurance of Langham play for a moment, and then turned to the rear of the studio, opened a door, struck a match, and groped his way to a naked gas jet. The sudden flare of light revealed a lean-to room, meant originally for nobody knew what, but turned into a bedroom. The only article of furniture which piqued curiosity in the least