"I think you have brought me luck, Miss Maynard."
Helen opened her eyes wonderingly.
"The two Russian connoisseurs who stared at us so rudely were pleased,
however, to also stare at my work. They offered me a fabulous sum for
one or two of my sketches. It didn't seem to me quite the square thing
to old Favel the picture-dealer, whom I had forced to take a lot at one
fifteenth the price, so I simply referred them to him."
"No!" said Miss Helen indignantly; "you were not so foolish?"
Ostrander laughed.
"I'm afraid what you call my folly didn't avail, for they wanted what
they saw in my portfolio."
"Of course," said Helen. "Why, that sketch of the housetop alone was
worth a hundred times more than what you"--She stopped; she did not like
to reveal what he got for his pictures, and added, "more than what any
of those usurers would give."
"I am glad you think so well of it, for I do not mean to sell it," he
said simply, yet with a significance that kept her silent.
She did not see him again for several days. The preparation for her
examination left her no time, and her earnest concentration in her work
fully preoccupied her thoughts. She was surprised, but not disturbed, on
the day of the awards to see him among the audience of anxious parents
and relations. Miss Helen Maynard did not get the first prize, nor
yet the second; an accessit was her only award. She did not know until
afterwards that this had long been a foregone conclusion of her teachers
on account of some intrinsic defect in her voice. She did not know until
long afterwards that the handsome painter's nervousness on that occasion
had attracted even the sympathy of some of those who were near him. For
she herself had been calm and collected. No one else knew how crushing
was the blow which shattered her hopes and made her three years of labor
and privation a useless struggle. Yet though no longer a pupil she could
still teach; her master had found her a small patronage that saved her
from destitution. That night she circled up quite cheerfully in her
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