“I am afraid it is very hard to sell such pictures, for any but artists of the first rank,” she said. “But I am going to try,” she added, hopefully. “I must try.”
“The screen that Maria Oakes painted for the Village Improvement Society’s Fair brought five dollars,” I said, encouragingly.
Was there again a little contemptuous quiver of the finely-chiseled lips?
“I know I’m not a judge, Estelle,” I said, humbly. “I’ve had my mind so upon cheese and preserves. I’m only critical because I so much want you to succeed.”
She gave me one of her rare caresses—rare even when she was a child.
“I’m hateful about my work because I’m so anxious,” she said. “I only wish I had had a talent for cheese and preserves!”
“If you will take my money, just to tide you over this trouble,” I hazarded again. “You will be sure to pay it. Nothing is denied to patient and well-directed effort,” I quoted tritely from the copy-book.
“Not when it’s for Dave—and you don’t believe in him!” she said, firmly.
What would I not have given to be able to say that I did believe in Dave!
“I think it was noble of him to come home and work in the shipyard,” I said, a trifle haltingly, for in my heart was a lurking doubt whether it would not have been nobler in Dave to go away and carve out his future independently—although I surely did not wish that he had done that, for I feared the world for Dave.