"PARIS—for just one month!" he repeated, with infinite wistfulness, and then realizing what an old, old cry it was with him, he shook his head, impatiently sniffing out a laugh at himself, rose and went pottering about among the canvases, returning their faces to the wall, and railing at them mutteringly.
"Whatever took me into it, I don't know. I might have done something useful. But I couldn't bring myself ever to consider doing anything else—I couldn't bear even to think of it! Lord forgive me, I even tried to encourage your father to paint. Perhaps he might as well, poor boy, as to have put all he'd made into buying Jonas out. Ah me! There you go, 'Flower-Girls'! Turn your silly faces to the wall and smile and cry there till I'm gone and somebody throws you on a bonfire. I'LL never look at you again." He paused, with the canvas half turned. "And yet," he went on, reflectively, "a man promised me thirty-five dollars for that picture once. I painted it to order, but he went away before I finished it, and never answered the letters I wrote him about it. I wish I had the money now—perhaps we could have more than two meals a day."
"We don't need more," said Ariel, scraping the palette attentively. "It's healthier with only breakfast and supper. I think I'd rather have a new dress than dinner."
"I dare say you would," the old man mused. "You're young—you're young. What were you doing all this afternoon, child?"
"In my room, trying to make over mamma's wedding-dress for to-night."
"To-night?"
"Mamie Pike invited me to a dance at their house."
"Very well; I'm glad you're going to be gay," he said, not seeing the faintly bitter smile that came to her face.
"I don't think I'll be very gay," she answered.
"I don't know why I go—nobody ever asks me to dance."