Artful Madge

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Title:     Artful Madge
Author: Anna Fuller [More Titles by Fuller]

CHAPTER I

THE PRIZE CONTEST

"Artful Madge" was the very flippant name by which Madge Burtwell's brother Ned had persisted in calling her from the time when, at the age of sixteen, she gained reluctant permission to become a student at the Art School.

"Not that we have any objection to art," Mrs. Burtwell was wont to explain in a deprecatory tone; "only we should have preferred to have Madge graduate first, before devoting herself to a mere accomplishment. It seems a little like putting the trimming on a dress before sewing the seams up," she would add; "I did it once when I was a girl, and the dress always had a queer look."

But Mrs. Burtwell, though firm in her own opinions, was something of a philosopher in her attitude toward the contrary-minded, and even where her own children were concerned she never allowed her influence to degenerate into tyranny. When she found Madge, at the age of sixteen, more eager than ever before to study art, and nothing else, she told her husband that they might as well make up their minds to it, and, at the word, their minds were made up. For Mr. Burtwell was the one entirely and unreasoningly tractable member of Mrs. Burtwell's flock; in explanation of which fact he was careful to point out that only a mature mind could appreciate the true worth of Mrs. Burtwell's judgment.

The Burtwells were people of small means and of correspondingly modest requirements. They lived in an unfashionable quarter of the city, kept a maid-of-all-work, sent their children to the public schools, and got their books from the Public Library. Having no expensive tastes, they regarded themselves as well-to-do and envied no one.

If Madge Burtwell's eyes had been a whit less clear, or her nature a thought less guileless, Ned would not have been so enchanted with his new name for her. Indeed, a few years ago she had been described by an only half-appreciative friend as "a splendid girl without a mite of tact," and if she had succeeded in somewhat softening the asperity of her natural frankness, there was enough of it left to lend a delicate shade of humour to the name.

Artful Madge, then, was a student at the Art School, and a very promising one at that. At the end of three years she had made such good progress that she was promoted to painting in the Portrait Class, and since her special friend and crony, Eleanor Merritt, was also a member of that class, Madge considered her cup of happiness full. Not that there were not visions in plenty of still better things to come, but they seemed so far in the future that they hardly took on any relation with the actual present. Madge and Eleanor dreamed of Europe, of the old masters and of the great Paris studios, but it is a question whether the fulfillment of any dream could have made them happier than they were to-day. Certain it is, that, as they stood side by side in the great barren studio, clad in their much-bedaubed, long-sleeved aprons, and working away at a portrait head, they had little thought for anything but the task in hand. The one vital matter for the moment was the mixing and applying of their colours, and, in their eagerness to reproduce the exact contour of a cheek, or the precise shadow of an unbeautiful nose, they would hardly have transferred their attention from the most ill-favoured model to the last and greatest Whistler masterpiece.

The girls at the Art School had got hold of Ned's name for his sister and adopted it with enthusiasm.

"If you want to know the truth, ask Artful Madge," was a very common saying among them.

"Artful Madge says it's a good likeness, anyhow!" modest little Minnie Drayton would maintain, when hard pressed by the teasing of the older girls.

The incongruity of the name seemed somehow to throw into brighter relief the peculiar sincerity of its bearer's character, and by the time it was generally adopted among the students Madge Burtwell's popularity was established.

It was well that Madge was a favourite, for in certain respects she was the worst sinner in the class. To begin with, her palette was the very largest in the room, and the most plentifully besmeared with colours, and woe to the girl who ventured too near it! As Madge stood before her easel, tall and fair and earnest, painting with an ardour and concentration which was all too sure to beguile her into her besetting sin of "exaggerating details," she wielded both brush- and palette-arm with a genial disregard of consequences. Nor could one count upon her confining her activities to one location. Like all the students, she was in the habit of backing away from her natural anchorage from time to time, the better to judge of her work, and not one of them all had such a fatal tendency to come up against an unoffending easel in the rear, sending canvas and paint-tubes rattling upon the floor.

Instantly she would drop upon her knees, overcome with contrition, and help collect the scattered treasures, giving many a jar or joggle to neighbouring easels in the process.

"It's a shame, Miss Folsom!" she would cry, struggling to her feet again, still clutching her beloved palette, which seemed fairly to rain colours on every surrounding object. "It's a shame! But if you will just cast your eye upon that thing of mine, you will perceive that it was the recklessness of desperation. Look at it! There's not a value in it!"

Artful Madge was always forgiven, and no one ever thought of calling her awkward, and when, in the early autumn, a Saturday sketching club was organised, it was christened "The Artful Daubers" in honor of Madge, and she was unanimously elected president.

The girls were not in the habit of paying much attention to chance visitors who came in from time to time and made the perilous passage among the easels, and lucky was the "parent" or "art-patron" who escaped without a streak of colour on some portion of his raiment. When Mrs. Oliver Jacques looked in upon them one memorable morning in February no premonition of great things to come stirred the company; only indifferent glances were directed upon her by the few who deigned to observe her at all. And this pleased Mrs. Oliver Jacques very much indeed.

Yet, if the girls had paused to consider,--a thing which they never did when there was a model on the platform,--they would have been aware that their visitor was a person of importance in the world of Art, for importance in no other world would have secured to her the personal escort of Mr. Salome, the adored teacher of their class. Yet Mrs. Jacques was a charming little old lady who would have commanded attention on her own merits in any less preoccupied assembly than that of the studio. Her exceedingly bright eyes and her exceedingly white hair seemed to accentuate her animation of manner; there was so much sparkle in her face that even her silence did not lack point.

She had accomplished her tortuous passage among the easels without meeting with any mishaps in the shape of Cremnitz-white or crimson-lake. She had paused occasionally and had bestowed a critical nod upon the one "blocked-in" countenance, or had drawn her brows together questioningly over a study in which the nose had a startlingly finished appearance in a still sketchy environment, but not until she had successfully avoided the last easel, planted at an erratic angle just where the unwary would be sure to stub his toe, did she make any remark.

"A lot of them, aren't there?" she observed.

"Yes, the school is pretty full," Mr. Salome replied. "In fact, we're a little bothered for room."

"Any imagination among them?"

"Well, as to that, it's rather early to form an opinion. Our aim just now is to keep them to facts. Some of them," the artist added with a smile, "are rather too much inclined to draw upon their imagination. Now there is one girl there who is, humanly speaking, certain to paint the model's hair jet-black, or as black as paint can be made. And yet, you see, there is not a black thread in it."

"I wonder whether you would object to my making an experiment?" Mrs. Jacques asked, abruptly.

And from that seemingly unpremeditated question of Mrs. Jacques', and from the consultation that ensued, grew the Prize Contest, destined to be famous in the annals of the school.

When, on that very afternoon, the students were assembled for the occasion, they had not yet had time to adjust their minds to the magnitude of the interests involved. Yet the conditions were simple enough. That student who should, in the space of two hours, produce the best composition illustrative of "Hope" was to receive a prize of five hundred dollars! The conviction prevailed among them that the vivacious little old lady with the white hair could be none other than the fairy godmother of nursery lore, and it was only too delightful to find that agile and beneficent myth interesting herself in the cause of Art.

When once the class was fairly launched upon its new emprise, a change in the usual aspect of things became apparent. In the first place, most of the students were seated; for, in a task of pure composition, there was no occasion either for standing or for "prowling,"--the term familiarly applied to the sometimes disastrous backward and forward movements of which mention has been made, and which ordinarily gave so much action to the scene. Furthermore, the use of watercolor, as lending itself more readily than oils to rapid execution, deprived the scene of one of its most picturesque features,--namely, the brilliant-hued palette which, with its similarity to a shield, was wont to lend its bearer an Amazonian air, not lost upon the class caricaturists. Subdued, however, and almost "lady-like" as the appearance of the class had become, hardly half an hour had passed before the genial spirit of creation had so taken possession of the assembly as to cast a glow and glamour of its own upon it. Here and there, to be sure, might still be seen an anxious, intent young face with eyes fixed upon vacancy, or an idle, if somewhat begrimed and parti-coloured hand, fiercely clutching a dejected head; but nearly all were already busily at work, eagerly painting, or as eagerly obliterating strokes too hastily made. The subject, hackneyed as it certainly is, had pleased and stimulated the girls. There was a mingled vagueness and familiarity in its suggestion which puzzled them and spurred them on at the same time.

Among the most impetuous workers, almost from the outset, was Artful Madge. She had instantly conceived of Hope as a vague, beckoning figure, which was to take its significance from the multitude and variety of its followers. She chose a large sheet of paper and quickly sketched in the upper left-hand corner a very indefinite hint of a winged, luminous something,--it might have been an angel or a bird or a cloud, seen from a great distance, against a somewhat threatening sky. Without defining the form at all she very cleverly produced an impression of receding motion;--she ventured even to hope that there was something alluring in the motion. That, however, must be made unmistakably clear through the pursuing figures with which she proposed to fill the foreground.

She glanced at Eleanor, who had not yet mixed a colour.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"I don't seem ready to begin," said Eleanor, in an absent tone of voice.

"Have you got an idea?"

"I think so."

"Then do hurry up and go ahead, or you'll get left."

Madge sat a moment, looking straight before her.

"What are you going to put in there?" asked Eleanor.

"What I want is all the people in the world," Madge replied, with perfect gravity. "But there is not room for them."

A moment later she was working furiously, with hot cheeks and shining eyes and breath coming faster and faster.

First she would have a soldier. Madge had always loved a soldier; her father had been one in the great and splendid days before she was born. Yes, a soldier must come first. And forthwith a very sketchy warrior stepped, with a very martial air, upon the paper. Then an artist ought to come next;--only she could not think of any way of indicating his calling without the aid of some conventional emblem. A mere look of inspiration might belong to a poet or a preacher as well as to an artist. Besides which, she was by no means sure that she knew how to paint a look of inspiration. And then it came to her that, unless she could paint just that, her picture must be a failure; and so she fell upon it, and began sketching in figures of old and young, rich and poor, trying only to put into each face the eager, upward look which should focus all, in spirit as well as in actual direction, upon the flying, luminous figure. In some attempts she succeeded and in some she failed. There was one old woman, with abnormally deep wrinkles, and shoulders somewhat out of drawing, whose face had caught a curiously inspired look; Madge did not dare touch her again for fear of losing it. Her artist, on the other hand, the young man with the ideal brow and very large eyes, grew more and more inane and expressionless the more eagerly his creator worked at him.

On the whole, the production as a two-hour composition by a three-year student was rather good than bad. When time was called Madge felt pretty sure that she should not win the prize; she had undertaken too much, both for the occasion and for her own ability. And yet it was borne in upon her to-day that she was going to make a better artist than she had ever before dared hope.

So absorbed had she been in her own work, that she had completely forgotten Eleanor, and had not even been aware that her friend had begun painting an hour ago. Now she turned to her with compunction in her heart. Eleanor held her finished sketch in her hand, but her eyes had wandered to the high, broad north window which was one great sheet of radiant blue sky.

Eleanor's composition was very simple, but extremely well done, and in the glance Madge was able to give it before the sketches were handed in she saw that it was delicately suggestive. It represented a curving shore, a quiet sea, and a saffron sky,--no sails on the sea, no clouds in the sky. Upon the shore stood a solitary pine-tree, almost denuded of branches, and against the tree leaned the slender figure of a youth, looking dreamily across the sea to the horizon, where the saffron colour was tinged with gold. That was all, but Madge felt sure that it was enough; and, as she thought about it, she felt herself very small and crude and confused, and she was conscious of a perfectly calm and dispassionate wish to tear her own sketch in two. She did not do so, however. There was no irritation, nor envy, nor even displeasure, in her mind. She had not supposed that either she or Eleanor could do anything so good as that sketch,--since one of them could, why, that was just so much clear gain.

A moment later the studio was in a tumult. The sketches had been handed over to the three judges, who had gone into instant consultation over them. Mrs. Jacques had decreed, with characteristic decision, that the judges were bound to be as prompt as the competitors, and the award was promised within half an hour. What wonder if the usual tumult of dispersion was increased tenfold by the excitement of the occasion? The voices were pitched in a higher key, the easels clattered more noisily than ever, there was a more lively movement among the many-hued aprons, as they were pulled off and consigned with many a shake and a flourish to their respective pegs.

"What did you paint?" asked one high voice, whose owner was enthusiastically shaking the water from her paint-brush all over the floor.

"I painted you--working for the prize."

"Not really!"

"Yes, really! You were just at the right angle for it, and you did look so hopeful!"

"You can't make me believe you played such a shabby trick upon me, Mary Downing!"

"Shabby! If you knew how good-looking you were at a three-eighths' angle you would be grateful to me! You did have such an inspired look for a little while,--before you got disgusted, and began to wash out."

"Jane Rhoades did an awfully pretty thing--a white bird with a boy running after it. But I felt perfectly certain that the little wretch had a gun in his other hand!"

"What a fiery head you gave your angel, Mattie Stiles! He looked like Loge in Rheingold!"

"I don't care," said Mattie, in a tone of voice that showed that she did care very much indeed. "I do like red hair, and we haven't had a chance to paint any all winter."

"Red hair wouldn't make Titians of us," sighed Miss Isabella Ricker, who was of a despondent temperament.

"It wouldn't be any hindrance, anyhow!" Mattie insisted.

Meanwhile the half-hour was drawing to a close. A general air of rough order had descended upon the studio. The girls were sitting or standing about in groups, their remarks getting more disjointed and irrelevant as the nervousness of anticipation grew upon them. Madge and Eleanor had found a seat on the steps of the platform. The former was making a pencil sketch of Miss Isabella Ricker, who had abandoned herself to dejection in a remote corner of the room. Madge looked up suddenly, and found that Eleanor was watching her work.

"Your thing is very interesting," she remarked, in a reserved tone, which, nevertheless, sent the colour mounting slowly up her friend's sensitive cheek. They both understood that no more commendatory adjective than "interesting" was to be found in the art-student's vocabulary.

"You're partial, Madge."

"Not a bit of it. But I know an interesting thing when I see it. If you win the prize," she asked abruptly, "what shall you do with the money?"

"If you go to the moon next week, what shall you do with the green cheese?" Eleanor retorted, with an unprecedented outburst of sarcasm.

"I think you might answer my question," said Madge; and at that instant the door opened and a hush fell upon the room.

The suspense was not painfully prolonged. The Curator of the Art Museum, who had been associated with Mrs. Jacques and Mr. Salome as judge, stepped upon the platform, from which Madge and Eleanor had precipitately retreated, and made the following announcement:

"We have, on the whole," he said, "been very well pleased with the work we have had to consider. In fact, several of the sketches were better than anything we had looked for. Nevertheless our decision was not a difficult one, and our choice is unanimous. The prize which Mrs. Jacques has had the originality and the generosity to offer has been awarded to Mary Eleanor Merritt."

* * * * *

"And now will you answer my question?"

Madge and Eleanor were walking home together through the light snow which had just begun to fall. They had been curiously shy of speaking, and, before the silence was broken, a pretty wreath of snow had formed itself about the rim of each of their black felt hats, while little ribbons of it were decorating the folds of their garments.

"What are you going to do with your green cheese?"

"I shall go to Paris next autumn," said Eleanor, tightly clasping the check which she held inside her muff.

"That's what I thought," said Madge; and if her eyes grew a trifle red and moist it was perhaps natural enough, since the snow was flying straight into them.

CHAPTER II

THE MINIATURE

"What makes you keep looking at me, Eleanor Merritt? You're not a bit of a good model!"

Thus reproved, Eleanor once more fixed her eyes upon a very bad oil-portrait of Great-grandfather Burtwell, an elderly man of a wooden countenance, in stock and choker, surmounting an expanse of black broadcloth which occupied two-thirds of the canvas.

The girls were established in what was known as the spare-room of the Burtwell house, which, with its north light and usual freedom from visitors made a very good studio. Madge was painting a miniature of Eleanor. The diminutive size of her undertaking was causing her a good deal of embarrassment, and she was consequently inclined to be rather severe with her sitter.

"You know I am not going to have many more chances of looking at you for a year to come," Eleanor urged, in a tone of meek dejection.

"And I can't see you, even now," Madge persisted, "if you don't turn more toward the light."

There was silence again for some minutes, while Madge painted steadily on. Difficult as was this new task which she had set herself, she was captivated with it. However the miniature might turn out as a likeness, she felt sure that each stroke of her brush was making a prettier picture of it. The eyes already had the real Eleanor look, and the hair was "pretty nice." The mouth was troublesome, to be sure, and to-day she did not feel inspired to improve it, and had turned her attention to less important details.

"You've got such a pretty ear!" she remarked presently, as she touched its outermost rim with a hair line, cocking her head to one side, the while, in a very professional manner; "Did you ever notice what a pretty ear you have?"

"Better be careful how you talk about it," Eleanor laughed, "for fear it should begin to burn!"

The artist looked in some trepidation at the feature in question, but its soft hue did not deepen. She took the precaution, however, to change the subject; to one which she often chose, indeed, for the sake of the animation it brought into the pretty face of her model. Eleanor's "repose" sometimes bothered her.

"What shall you do the first day in Paris?" Madge asked.

"I shall write to you."

"Good gracious! You won't write to me before you have seen the Louvre!"

"I shall write to you the very first minute. And then I shall write again that same evening, and tell you whether there really is a Louvre! If there shouldn't be one, you know, I shouldn't feel so like a pig in being there without you!"

"You needn't feel like a pig, as far as that goes," said Madge. "I couldn't have gone to Paris if I had won the prize."

"Why not?"

"Well, I had it out with Father this morning. He says it's not a mere matter of money; that if he and Mother thought well of my going, they could manage it."

"O Madge! Can't you make them think well of it?"

"I'm afraid not. Father never did really believe in my going in for art, and I think he believes in it less now than he ever did. He says I've been at it for three years, and I haven't painted a pretty picture yet. And he says he doesn't see what good it's going to do me in after-life; that if I marry I sha'n't keep it up, and there wouldn't be any good in my trying to;--which is, of course a mistake, only I can't make him believe that it is,--and he says that if I don't marry, I've got to earn my living sooner or later."

"Why, but that's just it, Madge! You're going to be able to earn your living! You're sure to!"

But Madge was again engrossed in her work. The afternoon would soon draw to a close, and if she wished to carry out her designs upon that ear it behooved her to stop talking. Though her little picture was an oval of three inches by four, it had cost her more strokes than any canvas of ten times the size had ever done. And Eleanor was to sail in a fortnight!

At last the light began to fade, and Madge knew that she must stop.

"What do you suppose Father said to me this morning?" she asked, as she washed out her brushes and put her paint-box in order.

"I can't imagine."

"Well, he said that when any good judge thought my pictures worth paying for in good hard cash, it would be time to think of sending me 'traipsing over the world with my paint-pot.' He said that if I would come to him with a fifty-dollar bill of my own earning he should begin to think there was some sense in my art-talk."

"Did he really say that? Why, Madge, who knows?"

Madge had shut up her paint-box and moved to the window, where she was gloomily looking down into her neighbours' backyards.

"If you mean Noah's Dove," she said, "You might as well give him up. He's come back for the thirteenth time."

Now "Noah's Dove" was the name which Madge had bestowed upon a small bundle of pen-and-ink sketches which she had been sending about to the illustrated papers for two or three months past, and which had earned their name by the persistency with which they had found their way back again. The girls had both thought them funny and original; indeed Eleanor, with the partiality of one's best friend, did not hesitate to pronounce them better than many of the things that got accepted. Up to this time, however, no editor had seemed disposed to recognise their merits, and they had been repeatedly and ignominiously rejected.

"But you'll keep on sending them, won't you, Madge?" Eleanor insisted.

"Of course I shall, as long as there is a picture-paper left in the country; though the postage does cost an awful lot!"

The sun had set, and a tinge of rosy colour was spreading across the northern sky behind the chimneys. The girls stood silent for a moment, watching the colour deepen, while a wistful look came into Eleanor's face.

"After all, Madge," she said; "it must be nice to have somebody think for you, even when he doesn't think the way you want him to."

"Oh, of course, Father's a dear. I don't suppose I would swap him off, even for Paris!"

"I wish I could even remember my father or my mother, or anybody that really belonged to me!" Eleanor said; then, feeling that she was making an appeal for sympathy, a thing which she was principled against doing, she turned her eyes away from the tender, beguiling colour behind the chimneys, and looked, instead, at the big oil portrait on the wall. "It's something to have even a painted grandfather of your own!" she declared.

"How I should love to give you mine!" laughed Madge. "He's such a horrible daub, and I should so like to have the frame when it comes time to exhibit! You would not insist upon having him in a frame, would you, Nell?"

Presently the girls went down-stairs together and Eleanor stayed to tea, and told the family all about her Paris plans, and how she felt like a pig to be going without Madge. And all the time, as she talked to these kindly, sympathetic people, it seemed to her that Madge was even more to be envied than she; and she wished she knew how to say so in an acceptable manner. But Eleanor found as much difficulty as most of us do, in expressing our best and truest thoughts, and so the Burtwell family never knew what a heart-warming impression they had made upon their guest.

Eleanor had lived for the past three years with a married cousin, a daughter of the not particularly congenial or affectionate Aunt Sarah, now deceased, who had brought her up from babyhood. The gentle, sensitive girl, with the artistic temperament, had never been happy with her cousin, though the latter was far from suspecting the fact. Mrs. Hamilton Hicks was fond of Eleanor, or imagined herself to be so, and she always gave her young cousin her due share of credit, in view of the fact that they had "never had any words together." Nevertheless, she had acceded very readily to the Paris plan, and had herself taken pains to find a suitable chaperon for the young traveller.

The result was, that on the fifteenth of September Eleanor went forth into the great world in company with a lively and voluble Frenchwoman, a lady whom she had seen but twice before in her life, who had promised to establish her in a good private family in Paris. And since Mrs. Hamilton Hicks had negotiated the arrangement, its success was a foregone conclusion.

When Madge left the railway station after bidding Eleanor good-bye, and stepped out into the crowded city thoroughfare, the world seemed to her very empty and desolate, in spite of the multitude of her fellow-creatures who jostled against her. She could think of nothing but Eleanor, standing on the platform of the car as the train moved out of the station, and she was desperately sorry to have lost the last sight of her friend's tearful face, because of a curious blur that had come over her own eyes at the moment. At the recollection, she mechanically put her hand into her pocket in search of the miniature which she usually carried about with her. She had left it at home lest she should lose it in the crowded railway station. It gave her a pang not to find it, and she made up her mind then and there that she would never go without it again.

The moment she reached her own room she seized the picture and had a good look at it. She had placed it in the inner gilt rim of an old daguerreotype, which set it off very nicely. She had discarded the hard leather daguerreotype case, as being too clumsy to carry about in her pocket, and in its place had made a sort of pocket-book of red morocco which was a sufficient protection for the glass, in her careful keeping.

She had never liked the picture so well as she did to-day, for she thought of it now for the first time, not as a work of art, but as a likeness, and imperfect as it was, even from that point of view, it gave her very great pleasure to look at it. Yes, decidedly, she must always have it by her hereafter; and she slipped it into her pocket while she made herself ready for tea.

But supposing she should have her pocket picked! A pickpocket, she reflected, might, in the hastiness which must always characterise his operations, mistake the little leather case for a purse, and then--how should she ever get the precious miniature back again? "Not that he would want to keep it," she said to herself, as she took it out once more for a parting look,--"unless he should lose his heart to that ear!"--and she regarded the tiny pink object with pardonable pride. But with the best intentions in the world, how would he be able to restore it? She must put her address in the case; that would be a simple matter.

An hour later, the family were gathered about the great round table in the pleasant sitting-room, pursuing their various avocations by the light of an excellent argand burner. Mr. Burtwell was reading his evening paper, imparting occasional choice bits to his wife and his eldest daughter, Julia, who were dealing with a heap of mending. The two younger children were playing lotto, while Ned was having a hand-to-hand tussle with his Cicero, a foeman likely to prove worthy of his steel.

Madge had taken out a sheet of paper, with a view to inscribing her address upon it. The mere act of doing so had called up to her mind so vivid an impression of the thief for whose information it was destined, that she suddenly felt impelled to address to him a few words of admonition. With an agreeable sense of the absurdity of her performance, she began a letter to this figment of her imagination, and this is what she wrote:

* * * * *

"DEAR PICKPOCKET,

"For, as I shall never leave this miniature about anywhere, you must be a pickpocket if it falls into your hands. To begin with, then; it is not a good miniature at all, and there is no use in your trying to sell it. In fact, it is a very bad miniature, as you will see if you know anything about such things, which you probably don't. But it is very valuable to me, and so I hope you will return it to me as soon as you find out how bad it is. You probably won't want to bring it yourself,--I'm sure I should not think you would!--but you can perfectly well send it by express, and you can let them collect charges on delivery, unless you think that, under the circumstances, you ought to prepay them. My address is,

Miss Margaret Burtwell," etc.

* * * * *

Madge read over her production with an amusement and satisfaction which quite filled, for the moment, the aching void of which she had been so painfully conscious. The letter occupied but one-half the sheet, and, as the young artist's eye fell upon the blank third page, she was seized with an irresistible impulse to draw a picture on it.

The figure of the pickpocket was by this time so vivid to her mind, that she began making a pen-and-ink sketch of him, as a dark-browed villain in the act of rifling the pocket of a very haughty young woman proceeding along the street with an air of extreme self-consciousness. The drawing was on a very small scale, and when it was finished to her satisfaction there was still half the page unoccupied. Madge hastily wrote under the sketch the words: "The Crime," and a moment later she was engrossed in the execution of a still more dramatic design, representing the criminal in the hands of two stalwart policemen, being ignominiously dragged through the street toward a sort of mediaeval fortress, with walls some twenty feet thick, upon which was inscribed in enormous characters, "JAIL." Still more action was given the drawing by the introduction of two or three small and gleeful ragamuffins, dancing a derisive war-dance behind the captive, and of two dogs of doubtful lineage, barking like mad on the outskirts of the group. Under this picture was inscribed, "The Consequences of Crime," and at the bottom of the page appeared the words, "Behold and tremble!"

"What's Artful Madge up to?" asked Ned, as he closed his Latin Dictionary with a bang.

"Writing a letter," Madge replied, composedly.

"To the Prize Pig?"

"The what?"

"The Prize Pig! You know Eleanor said she felt like a pig to be going to Paris without you, and as she got the prize----"

"You impudent boy!"

"Not in the least. I'm only witty."

"Witty!"

"Yes,--I've heard wit defined as the unexpected."

"The dictionary doesn't define it so, and good manners don't define impudence as wit."

"We're not discussing impudence, we're discussing wit. And I know positively that wit is defined as the unexpected."

"Let's have your authority," said Mr. Burtwell, who had not heard the first part of the discussion.

"Let us see what the dictionary says," suggested Julia, who was the scholar of the family.

"Very well; and what will you bet that I'm not right?"

"We don't bet in this family," said Mr. Burtwell, with decision.

"Oh, well, that's only a form of speech. What will you do for me, Madge, if I'm right?"

"I'll put you into an allegorical sketch."

"Good! I always wondered that you didn't make use of such good material in the artful line!"

The wire dictionary-stand, containing the portly form of Webster Unabridged, was instantly brought up to the light, and there was half a minute's silence while Ned turned the leaves.

"Score me one!" he shouted, in high glee. "Listen to Webster! 'Wit. 3. Felicitous association of objects not usually connected, so as to produce a pleasant surprise.' Quite at your service, my artful relative, whenever you would like a sitting!"

"I protest! You haven't won!"

"Haven't won, indeed! I leave it to the gentlemen of the jury. Is not the name of Prize Pig for Miss Eleanor Merritt a 'felicitous association of objects not usually connected'?"

"No! The association is infelicitous, and consequently it does not produce a 'pleasant surprise.'"

The family listened with the amused tolerance with which they usually left such discussions to the two chief wranglers.

"I maintain," insisted Ned, "that the association of objects is felicitous, and must be, because it was instituted by Miss Eleanor Merritt herself. She won the prize, and she said she was a pig."

"But it doesn't produce a pleasant surprise," Madge objected.

"I beg your pardon! It has produced a pleasant surprise, as I can testify, for I have experienced it myself. What is your verdict, Mother?"

"My verdict is, that it's a pity, as I always thought it was, that you are not to be a lawyer, and that Madge can't do better than practise her drawing by making the allegorical sketch."

That Mrs. Burtwell should be on Ned's side was a foregone conclusion, and Madge appealed to her father.

"Father, is calling Eleanor Merritt a prize pig a form of wit?"

"Pretty poor wit I should call it!"

"Father is on my side!" shouted Ned. "He says it's poor wit, which is only one way of saying that it is wit!"

"Can wit be poor?" asked Julia.

"Father says it can."

"Then it isn't wit!" Madge protested.

"I should like to know why not. Old Mr. Tanner is a poor man, but he's a man for all that, and votes at elections for the highest bidder. And your logic's poor, but I suppose you'd call it logic!"

"I have an idea!" cried Madge. "I'm going to make my fortune out of you! I'm going to make a pair of excruciatingly funny pictures of you! The first shall be called The Student and Logic, and the second shall be called Logic and the Student! In the first the student shall be patting Logic on the head, and in the second,--oh, it's an inspiration!"

And forthwith Madge seized a large sheet of paper and began work.

"I'm not sure that this won't be the beginning of a series," she declared. "When it's finished I shall send it to a funny paper and get fifty dollars for it,--and when I have got fifty dollars for it, Father will send me to Paris; won't you, Daddy, dear?"

"What's that? What's that?" asked Mr. Burtwell.

"When I get fifty dollars,--or more!--for my Student, you will send me to Europe!"

"Oh, yes! And when you're Queen of England I shall be presented at Court! Listen to what the paper says: 'The Honourable Jacob Luddington and family have just returned from an extensive foreign tour. The two Miss Luddingtons were presented at the Court of St. James, where their exceptional beauty and elegance are said to have made a marked impression.' Good for the Honourable Jacob! His father was my father's chore-man, and here are his daughters hobnobbing with crowned heads!"

From which digression it is fair to conclude that Mr. Burtwell did not attach any great importance to his daughter's question or to his own answer. But Madge put away the promise in the safest recesses of her memory as carefully as she had tucked the letter to her "dear pickpocket" inside the red morocco pocket-book. It seemed as if the one were likely to be called for about as soon as the other,--"which means never at all!" she said to herself, with a profound sigh.

"The throes of creation have begun," Ned chuckled; and then, as he watched his sister's business-like proceedings, marvelling the while at what he secretly considered her quite phenomenal skill, he let himself be sufficiently carried away by enthusiasm to remark, "I say, Madge, you're no fool at that sort of thing, if you are a girl!"

CHAPTER III

NOAH'S DOVE

"I really think, Miss Burtwell, you might be a little more careful," Miss Isabella Ricker wailed, in a tone of hopeless remonstrance. It was the third time that morning that Madge had knocked against her easel, and human nature could bear no more.

"I think so too," said Madge, in a voice as dejected as her victim's own. "If I only knew how to prowl more intelligently, I would, I truly would."

"Tie yourself to your own easel," suggested Delia Smith; "then that will have to go first."

"You're a good one to talk!" cried Mary Downing. "You've upset my things twice this very morning!"

"Put those two behind each other," Josephine Wilkes suggested. "It will be a lesson to them."

"And who's going to sit behind the rear one?" somebody asked.

"Harriet Wells," Delia Smith proposed. "Mr. Salome said 'very good' to her this morning; she must be proof against adversity."

"No one is proof against adversity," Madge declared, in a tragic tone; but her remark passed unheeded. The girls were already at work again, and nothing short of another wreck was likely to distract their attention. The scrape of a palette-knife, the tread of a prowler, or the shoving of a chair to one side, were the only sounds audible in the room, excepting when the occasional roar of an electric car or the rattle of a passing waggon came in at the open window. It was the first warm day in April.

Artful Madge's sententious observation with regard to adversity was the fruit of bitter experience. Misfortune's arrows had been raining thick and fast about her, and although she was holding her ground against them very well, she felt that adversity was a subject on which she was fitted to speak with authority.

In the first place, her Student series was proving to be quite as much of a Noah's Dove as the first set of sketches which had so signally failed to find a permanent roosting-place in an inhospitable world. Only yesterday the familiar parcel had made its appearance on the front-entry table, that table which, for a year past, she had never come in sight of without a quicker beating of the heart. If she ever did have a bit of success, she often reflected, that piece of ancestral mahogany was likely to be the first to know of it. How often she had dreamed of the small business envelope, addressed in an unfamiliar hand, which might one day appear there! It would be half a second before she should take in the meaning of it. Then would come a premonitory thrill, instantly justified by a glance at the upper left-hand corner of the envelope, where the name of some great periodical would seem literally blazoned forth, however small the type in which it was printed. And then,--oh, then! the tearing open of the envelope, the unfolding of the sheet with trembling fingers, the check! Would it be for $10 or $15 or even $25, and might there be a word of editorial praise or admonition? Foolish, foolish dreams! And there was that hideous parcel, which she was getting to hate the very sight of! As she squeezed a long rope of burnt-sienna upon her palette, she made up her mind that she would wait a week before exposing herself to another disappointment. Perhaps the Student would improve with keeping, like violins and old masters. Certainly if he was anything like his prototype he needed maturing.

Meanwhile the model's mouth was proving as troublesome to paint as Eleanor's had been, and as Madge grew more and more perplexed with the problem of it she thought of the miniature with a fresh pang. For she had lost it! Three days ago it had somehow slipped from her possession. Had she left it lying on the table in the Public Library? Nobody there had seen anything of it. But on the very day of her loss she had been at the Library, examining the current numbers of all the illustrated papers, in the hope of gleaning some hint as to editorial tastes. She remembered reading Eleanor's last letter there, the letter in which her friend had written that she was to have two years more of Paris. She had read the letter through twice, and then she had taken out the miniature and had a good look at it. To think of Eleanor, having two more years of Paris! And it had all come about so simply! She had merely persuaded her cousin, Mr. Hicks, to advance a few hundred dollars till she should be of age and at liberty to sell a bond.

"There isn't anybody that believes in me," Madge had told herself; and then she had thought of something that Mr. Salome had said to her a few days ago, something that she would have considered it very unbecoming to repeat, even to Eleanor, but the memory of which, thus suddenly recalled, had filled her with such hopefulness that she had sped homeward to the mahogany table almost with a conviction of success. Was it in that sudden rush of hopefulness, so mistaken, alas, so groundless, that she had left the little morocco case lying about? Or had she pulled it out of her pocket with her handkerchief? Or had she really had her pocket picked?

What wonder that in the stress of anxious speculation she was making bad work of her painting! This would never do! She took a long stride backwards, and over went Miss Ricker's long-suffering easel, prone upon the floor, carrying with it a neighbouring structure of similar unsteadiness, which was, however, happily empty, save for a couple of jam-pots filled with turpentine and oil! These plunged with headlong impetuosity into space, forming little rivers of stickiness, as they rolled half-way across the room. Everybody rushed to the rescue, while Miss Ricker gazed upon the catastrophe with stony displeasure.

By a miracle, the canvas, though "butter-side-down," had escaped unscathed. Not until she was assured of this did the culprit speak.

"I'm a disgrace to the class," she said, "and expulsion is the only remedy. Tell Mr. Salome that I have forfeited every right to membership, and it's quite possible that I may never exaggerate another detail as long as I live."

"Time's up in two minutes," Mary Downing remarked, in her matter-of-fact voice, as she dabbed some yellow-ochre upon her subject's chin. "I rather think you'll come back to-morrow."

"But I do think it's somebody's else turn to work behind her," said Josephine Wilkes.

Miss Ricker gave a faint, assenting smile.

"I think Miss Ricker is very much indebted to Artful Madge," Harriet Wells declared. "There isn't another girl in the class who could have knocked that easel over without damaging the picture."

"Practice makes perfect," some one observed; and then, time being called, everybody began talking at once, and wit and wisdom were alike lost upon the company.

But Artful Madge was not to be lightly consoled.

"Mother," she said, that same afternoon, as she came into the little sitting-room over the front entry, where her mother was stitching on the sewing-machine, "I think I should like to do something useful. I'm kind of tired of art."

Madge had been helping wash the luncheon dishes, and was beginning to wonder whether her talents were not, perhaps, of a purely domestic order.

"I should think you would be tired of it!" said Mrs. Burtwell, in perfect good faith, as she snipped the thread at the end of a seam. "How you can make up your mind to spend all your days bedaubing your clothes with those nasty paints passes my comprehension."

"But sometimes I daub the canvas," Madge protested, with unwonted meekness, as she drew a grey woollen sock over her hand, and pounced upon a small hole in the toe; and at that very instant, which Madge was whimsically regarding as a possible turning-point in her career, the doorbell rang.

"A gintleman to see you, Miss," said Nora, a moment later, handing Madge a card.

"To see me?" asked Madge, incredulously, as she read the name, "Mr. Philip Spriggs! Are you sure he didn't ask for Father?"

But Nora was quite clear that she had not made a mistake.

"Who is it, Madge?" Mrs. Burtwell queried.

"It's probably a book agent," said Madge, as she went down-stairs to the parlour, rather begrudging the interruption to her darning bout.

Standing by the window, hat in hand, was an elderly man of a somewhat severe cast of countenance, as unsuggestive as possible, in his general appearance, of the comparatively frivolous name which a satirical fate had bestowed upon him.

As Madge entered the room he observed, without advancing a step toward her: "You are Miss Burtwell, I suppose. I came to answer your letter in person."

"My letter?" asked Madge, with a confused impression that something remarkable was going forward.

"Yes; this one,"--and he drew from his pocket the red morocco miniature case.

"Oh!" cried Madge, "how glad I am to have it!--and how kind you are to bring it!--and, oh! that dreadful letter!"

The three aspects of the case had chased each other in rapid succession through her mind, and each had got its-self expressed in turn.

Mr. Spriggs did not relax a muscle of his face.

"I found this on a table in the Public Library," he stated. "Your directions were so explicit that I could do no less than be guided by them."

There was something so solemn, almost judicial, about her guest that Madge became quite awestruck.

"Won't you please take a seat?" she begged, humbly. "I think I could apologise better if you were to sit down."

"Then you consider that there is occasion to apologise?" he asked, taking the proffered chair, and resting his hat upon the floor.

"Indeed, yes!" said Madge. "It's perfectly dreadful to think of the letter having fallen into the hands of any one so--" and she broke short off.

"So what?" asked Mr. Spriggs.

"Why, so dignified and so--very different from--" but again she found herself unable to finish her sentence.

"From a 'dear pickpocket?'" he suggested.

"Did I say 'dear pickpocket'?" cried Madge in consternation. "I didn't know I said 'dear.'"

"I suppose you desired to make a favourable impression, in order to get your picture back. There are some very good points about the picture," he remarked, as he took it out of the case and examined it. "There's a good deal of drawing in it, and considerable colour."

"Do you know about pictures?" asked Madge with eager interest.

"Not much. I've heard more or less art-jargon in my day; that's all."

Madge looked at him suspiciously.

"I am sure you will agree with me that I don't know much," he continued, "when I tell you that I prefer your pen-and-ink work to the miniature. 'The Consequences of Crime' is full of humour; and I have been given to understand that you can't produce an effect without skill,--what you would probably dignify with the name of technique. The second small boy on the right is not at all bad."

"You do know about art!" cried Madge. "I rather think you must be an artist."

Mr. Spriggs did not exactly change countenance; he only looked as if he were either trying to smile or trying not to. Madge wished she could make out just what were the lines and shadows in his face that produced this singular expression.

"Have you never thought of doing anything for the papers?" he asked.

"Thought of it! I've spent four dollars and sixty-one cents in postage within the last ten months, and he always comes back to the ark!"

"'He'? Comes back where?"

"To the ark. I call the package 'Noah's Dove' because it never finds a place to roost."

"The original dove did, after a while." Mr. Spriggs spoke as if he were taking the serious, historical view of the incident. "I imagine yours will, one of these days. Have you got anything you could show me?"

"Would you really care to see?"

"I can't tell till you show me," he said cautiously; but this time there was something so very like a smile among the stern features that Madge could see just what the line was that produced it.

She flew to her room, and seized Noah's Dove, and in five minutes that much-travelled bird had spread his wings,--all six of them,--for the delectation of this mysterious critic.

Madge watched him, as he leaned back in his chair and examined the sketches. He seemed inclined to take his time over them, and she felt sure that her Student had never before been so seriously considered.

At last Mr. Spriggs laid the drawings upon the table and fixed his thoughtful gaze upon the artist. His contemplation of her countenance was prolonged a good many seconds, yet Madge did not feel in the least self-conscious; it never once occurred to her that this severe old gentleman was thinking of anything but her Student. She found herself taking a very low view of her work, and quite ready to believe that perhaps, after all, those unappreciative editors knew what they were about.

"Have you ever sent these to the Gay Head? " her visitor inquired casually.

"Oh, no! I should not dare send anything to the Gay Head!"

"Why not?"

"Why! Because it's the best paper in the country. It would never look at my things."

"It certainly won't if you never give it a chance. You had better try it," he went on, in a tone that carried a good deal of weight. "You know they can do no worse than return it; and I should think, myself, that the Gay Head was quite as well worth expending postage-stamps on as any other paper. Mind; I don't say they'll take your things,--but it's worth trying for. By the way," he added as he rose to go; "I wouldn't send No. 5 if I were you; it's a chestnut."

He had picked up his hat and stood on his feet so unexpectedly that Madge was afraid he would escape her without a word of thanks.

"Oh, please wait just a minute," she begged. "I haven't told you a single word of how grateful I am. I feel somehow as if,--as if,--the worst were over!" This time Mr. Spriggs smiled broadly.

"And you will send Noah's Dove to the Gay Head? "

"Yes, I will, because you advise me to. But you mustn't think I'm conceited enough to expect him to roost there."

And that very evening the dove spread his wings,--only five of them now,--and set forth on the most ambitious flight he had yet ventured upon.

In the next few days Madge found her thoughts much occupied with speculations regarding her mysterious visitor; everything about him, his name, his errand, both the matter and the manner of his speech, roused and piqued her curiosity. It was clear that he knew a great deal about art. And yet, if he were an artist, she would certainly be familiar with his name. Whatever his calling, he was sure to be distinguished. Those judicial eyes would be severe with any work more pretentious than that of a mere student; that firm, discriminating hand,--she had been struck with the way he handled her sketches,--would never have signed a poor performance. Perhaps it was Elihu Vedder in disguise,--or Sargent, or Abbey! Since the descent of the fairy-godmother upon the class a year ago, no miracle seemed impossible. And yet, the miracle which actually befell would have seemed, of all imaginable ones, the most incredible. It took place, too, in the simplest, most unpremeditated manner, as miracles have a way of doing.

One evening, about a week after the return of the miniature, the family were gathered together as usual about the argand burner. It was a warm evening, and Ned, who was to devote his energies to the cause of electrical science, when once he was delivered from the thraldom of the classics, had made some disparaging remarks about the heat engendered by gas.

"By the way," said Mr. Burtwell, "that, reminds me! I have a letter for you, Madge. I met the postman just after I left the door this noon, and he handed me this with my gas bill. Who's your New York correspondent?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Madge, with entire sincerity, for it was far too early to look for any word from the Gay Head.

The letter had the appearance of a friendly note, being enclosed in a square envelope, undecorated with any business address. Madge opened it, and glanced at the signature, which was at the bottom of the first page. The blood rushed to her face as her eye fell upon the name: "Philip Spriggs, Art Editor of the Gay Head."

She read the letter very slowly, with a curious feeling that this was a dream, and she must be careful not to wake herself up. This was what she read:

* * * * *

"MY DEAR MISS BURTWELL,

"We like Noah's Dove as much as I thought we should. We shall hope to get him out some time next year. Can't you work up the pickpocket idea? That small boy, the second one from the right, is nucleus enough for another set. In fact, it is the small-boy element in your Student that makes him original--and true to life. We think that you have the knack, and count upon you for better work yet. We take pleasure in handing you herewith a check for this.

"Yours truly,
"PHILIP SPRIGGS."
* * * * *

The check was a very plain one on thin yellow paper, not in the least what she had looked for from a great publishing-house; but the amount inscribed in the upper left-hand corner of the modest slip of paper seemed to her worthy the proudest traditions of the Gay Head itself. The check was for sixty dollars.

As Madge gradually assured herself that she was awake, the first sensation that took shape in her mind was the very ridiculous one of regret that the mahogany table should have been deprived of its legitimate share in this great event. And then she remembered that it was her father himself who had handed her the letter.

She was still wondering how she should break the news to him, when she found herself giving an odd little laugh, and asking, "Father, what is your favourite line of ocean steamers?"

Mr. Burtwell, who had really felt no special curiosity as to his daughter's correspondent, was once more immersed in his evening paper. He looked up, at her words, as all the family did, and was struck by the expression of her face.

"What makes you ask that?" he demanded sharply.

"Because I know you always keep your promises, and--there's a letter you might like to read."

Mr. Burtwell took the letter, frowning darkly, a habit of his when he was puzzled or anxious. He read the letter through twice, and then he examined the check. He did not speak at once. There was something so portentous in this deliberation, and something so very like emotion in his kind, sensible face, that even Ned was awed into respectful silence.

At last Mr. Burtwell turned his eyes to his daughter's face, where everything, even suspense itself, seemed arrested, and said, in a matter-of-fact tone:

"I think you had better go by the North German Lloyd. Shall you start this week?"

"Oh, you darling!" cried Madge, throwing her arms about her father's neck, regardless of letter and check, which, being still in his hands, were called upon to bear the brunt of this attack; "How can I ever make up my mind to leave you?"

[The end]
Anna Fuller's short story: Artful Madge

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