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26 have a note of introduction to you from my old art teacher, Mr. Stanton!"

She gracefully offered Anne a wooden kitchen chair, and seated herself on a pine box under the window.

Anne was puzzled. The bare walls and cheap furniture wore the desolation of apparent poverty. But a gold-mounted travelling-bag stood in one corner. From the box where her hostess was sitting, the strong light bringing out all the rich colouring of her hair and lashes and curving cheeks, came the gleam of the silver furnishings of her toilet-table.

"Yes," Anne was saying, "I knew Mr. Stanton when we were children. We went to the same village school. My father was the minister. His father owned the mills."

"Mr. Stanton has very remarkable theories about art," observed the girl solemnly.

"He used to have when I knew him," Anne replied, smiling in reminiscence. "What are the new ones?"

"He thinks that art should not be