Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/67

 his own 'Hearth and Home.' Now, however, she was consecrated to her Brush, but she was not at all sure but she would prefer to be an author. She secretly hoped he would ask her to bring in some more of her stories, and was surprised and hurt that he did not remember publishing 'Martha's Side Saddle' two years before (her nom-de-plume then had been Myron Kerfew), or 'Pharaoh's Daughter,' which had run for three issues even more recently. Considering the fact that he was nominally the head of this great woman's magazine, he seemed curiously innocent of it. Now that he had started her talking freely about her literary aspirations, they seemed to bore him. He jerked at his stock, and said abruptly:

'Well, that's that.'

Just as he was leaving the front door, he added:

'By the way, "Hearth and Home" needs what we call a captive artist. You know, one who will sketch out the lamp-mats, night-caps, knitted sacks and baby's blankets, occasionally do fashion plates from rough sketches sent us from New York and Paris, or even illustrate stories. Are you interested?'

'I'd love it.'

He answered her enthusiasm cautiously.

'We won't commit ourselves. Come around to my place on School Street, and I can give you a try and you can give me a try. The idea would be for you to stop in, say every other day, and take your work home with you to do. Probably you'll not care for it, but stop in and blush for me, anyway, and I'll show you all the graves in my back yard.'