each other indifferently. An inspection would have shown that these pictures were mostly landscapes, with now and then a flower study in brilliant colors; and to the practised eye a distressing atmosphere of failure would have obtruded from every one.

From somewhere beyond the dining room came the odor of cooking food, and the sound of energetic but heavy footsteps.

"Hello, Rose," called John cheerily.

At the moment a woman came into view, bearing a steaming platter. She was large of frame, with gray eyes, with straight light hair, fair wide brow, and features that showed a general resemblance to Hampstead's own. Her face had a weary, disturbed look, but lighted for a moment at the sight of her brother.

Depositing the platter upon the table, the woman sank heavily into a chair at the end, where she began immediately to serve the plates. The children, a girl and a boy, sat side by side, with John across from them. This left a vacant chair opposite Rose, and before this a plate was laid.

For a time the family fell upon its food in silence. The girl was eleven years old perhaps, with eyes of lustrous hazel, reddish-brown hair massed in curls upon her shoulders and hanging below, cheeks hopelessly freckled, mouth large, and nose also without hope through being waggishly pugged. The boy, whose sharp, pale features exhibited traces of a battle with ill health begun at birth and not yet ended, had eyes that were like his mother's, clear and gray, and there was a brave turn to his upper lip that excited pity on a face so pale. He looked older but was probably younger than his sister. Hero-worship, frank and unbounded, was in the glance with which the two from time to time beamed upon their uncle.

After a considerable interval, John, glancing first at the empty chair and then at his sister, asked with significant constraint in his tone: "Any word?"

His sister's head was shaken disconsolately, and the angular shoulders seemed to sink a little more wearily as her face was again bowed toward her plate.

After another interval, Hampstead remarked: "You seem worried to-night, Rose."

"The rent is due to-morrow," she replied in a wooden voice.

"Is that all?" exclaimed John, throwing back his head with a relieved laugh. At the same time a hand had stolen into his pocket, and he drew out a twenty-dollar gold piece and tossed it across the table.

"The rent is $17.50," observed Rose, eyeing the coin doubtfully.

"Keep the change," chuckled John, "and pass the potatoes."

But the woman's gloom appeared to deepen.

"You pay your board promptly," she protested. "This is the third month in succession that you have also paid the rent. Besides, you are always doing for the children."

"Who wouldn't, I'd like to know?" challenged John, surveying them both proudly; whereat Dick, his mouth being otherwise engaged, darted a look of gratitude from his great, wise eyes, while Tayna reached over and patted her uncle's hand affectionately. "Tayna" was an Indian name the girl's father had picked up somewhere.

"Besides," went on John, "Charles is having an uphill fight of it right now. It's a pleasure to stand by a gallant fellow like him. He goes charging after his ideal like old Sir Galahad."

But the face of his sister refused to kindle.

"Like Don Quixote, you mean," she answered cynically. "I haven't heard from him in three weeks. He has not sent me any money in six. He sends it less and less frequently. He becomes more and more irresponsible. You are spoiling him to support his family for him, and," she added, with a choke in her voice, while a tear appeared in her eye, "he is spoiling us—killing our love for him."

The boy slipped down from his chair and stood beside his mother, stroking her arm sympathetically.

"Poppie's all right," he whispered in his peculiar drawl. "He'll come home soon and bring a lot of money with him. See if he don't!"

"Oh, I know," confessed Rose, while with one hand she dabbed the corner of her eye with an apron, and with the other clasped the boy impulsively to her. "I know I should not give way before the children. But—but it grows worse and worse, John!"

"Nonsense!" rebuked her brother. "You're only tired and run down. You need a rest, by Hokey! that's what you need. Charles is liable to sell that Grand Canyon canvas of his any time, and when he does, you'll get a month in Catalina, that's what you will!"

The wife was silently busy with her apron and her eyes.

"Do you know, Rose," John continued with forced enthusiasm, "my admiration for Charles grows all the time. He follows his star, that boy does!"

"And forgets his family—leaves it to starve!" reproached the sister bitterly, while the sag of her cheeks became still more noticeable.

"Ah, but that's where you do Charles an injustice," insisted John. "He knows I'm here. We have a sort of secret understanding; that is," and he gulped a little at going too far—"that is, we understand each other. He knows that while he is following his ideal, I won't see you starve. He's a genius; I'm the dub. It's a fair partnership. His eye is always on the goal. He will get there sure—and soon, now, too."

"He will never get there!" blurted out the dejected woman, as if with a sudden disregardful loosing of her real convictions. "For thirteen years I have hoped and toiled and believed and waited. A good while ago I made up my mind. He has not the vital spark. For five years I have pleaded with him to give it up—to surrender his ambition, to turn his undoubted talent to account. He has had the rarest aptitude for decorating. We might be having an income of ten thousand a year now. Instead he pursues this will-o'-the-wisp ambition of his. He is crazy about color, always chasing a foolish sunset or some wonderful desert panorama of sky and cloud and mountain—seeing colors no one else can see but unable to put his vision upon the canvas. That's the truth, John! I have never spoken it before. Never hinted it before the children! Charles Langham is a failure. He will never be anything else but a failure!"

The words, concluded by the barely successful suppression of a sob, fell on unprotesting silence. Who but this life-worn woman had so good an opportunity to know if they were true, so good a right to speak them if she believed them true? John looked at his plate, Tayna and Dick looked at each other. It required a stout heart to break the oppressive quiet, and for the moment no one in this group had that heart. The break came from the outside, when some one ran swiftly up the steps and threw open the front door. Instant sounds of collision and confusion issued from the hall, followed immediately by a masculine voice, thin and injured in tone, calling excitedly:

"Well, for the love of Michael Angelo! What do you keep stuffing the hall so full of furniture for? Won't somebody please come and help me with these things?"

The dinner table was abruptly deserted; but quick as John and the children were, Rose was ahead of them, and when they reached the hallway, a thin man of medium height, with an aquiline nose, dark eyes, and long loose hair, was helplessly in