"Oh, jeer away," he grumbled. "Honeymoon or not, it's too long."

"I must think of Craig's interests first."

MacGregor lifted his hat.

"Your father also dabbled in clay—and matrimony, I believe," he said, and left her definitely to herself.

She admitted the justice of his reminder when her cheek cooled, and, turning into a cross-town street, set a straight course for Richter's. The swathed model of a colossal group called "Agriculture," which he had in hand for a Western exposition, hid the sculptor as she pushed open the door of the big studio, and when she finally came upon the little man it was to discover Mrs. Joyce-Reeves beside him in close examination of an uncovered bit of foreground where a child tumbled in joyous, intimate communion with the soil.

They broke out laughing at sight of Jean.

"I told you I should ask Richter," declared the old lady, briskly. "His answer was to show me this."

Jean flushed at this indirect praise from the master.

"Mr. Richter let me have a hand in it," she said.

"A hand! He told me he should have had to leave the figure out altogether if you had not experimented with the janitor's baby."