"My dear, then no one has observed you lately. You certainly have taken hold splendidly of the girls in your painting class. Two or three of them, you know, have been called 'hard cases.' No one else ever could interest them, and yet they seem perfectly devoted to you."
"Oh, they are so amusing," said Martine, "that I can't help throwing myself into the work, and then I find out what they want to do, and let them do it. It's silly to make people do things they dislike. Of course," she added, with some embarrassment, "I am aware that this wouldn't be the right principle if I were a real artist, and were trying to make artists out of them. Some of them can't even draw, but they do take an interest in color, and so I am always hunting for good pictures in black and white—and their color effects sometimes are quite wonderful."
Martine did not explain that not a little of her own pocket money was spent for pictures suitable to her rather original method of conducting the class. Photographs and lithographs cost money, and though Amy remonstrated that it was contrary to art to gild the lily, Martine replied that the end would justify her means.
Among her six little pupils only one showed marked talent. She was a Russian girl who had been in Boston but a year, and her gift took the form of a genius for making caricatures.
Her pencil was constantly in her hand, and even with her brush she could outline figures and scenes on the margins of her pictures that would send the others into fits of uproarious laughter.
"Esther, Esther," Martine said one day, "you should never make fun of older people. Who is that tall, thin person, with the lorgnette in her hand?"
"That's teacher," explained one of the others, "the teacher in our school. It's her dead image, ain't it?" and the friend to whom she turned for confirmation, nodded, adding—
"When she's mad she puts her glasses up just so—and we all feel cheaper 'n thirty cents."
"I hope you don't make fun of me this way, Esther, behind my back."
"Oh, no'm, you ain't a teacher."