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 carried her beyond the elements of the art, to gain the technique of which she was unswerving in her desire. Two considerations accounted for her relentless perseverance, her consistent attention to her masters' schooling: one, her long-since, selfconfessed adoration for Gunnar, to whom, in imagination, at any rate, she always felt near when she: stood in the room where he had lived and worked, and whom, if she did not expect, she certainly hoped to see return one day, to reappear in this spot which in a sense was sacred to his memory; the other, her ambition to do what he did as well as he did it.

One day her audible sighs caught and held the attention of the sympathetic and motherly Mrs. Hugo, who was beginning to feel for this child more than an ordinary amount of affection, now that she had been the means of introducing the brothers to an occupation which apparently would feed and clothe and house them indefinitely, for while the vaudeville world demanded fresh talent, young and agile limbs, every new decade, the academic world, the philosophical and scientific world, appeared to be open to them so long as they were able to indicate, however feebly, the proper gestures leading to the acquirement of this long and difficult art.

What is it, dearie? the good woman inquired.

Nothing, Consuelo replied, but she sighed again.