_Cummings._--"The leafless elm would make a good picture, whatever you called it." Bartlett throws back his shaggy head and laughs up at the ceiling. "The fact is, Bartlett, I've got a little surprise for you." _Bartlett_, looking at him askance.--"Somebody wanting to chromo The Old Girl? No, no; it isn't quite so bad as that!" _Cummings_, in a burst.--"They _did_ want to chromo it. But it's sold. They've got you two hundred dollars for it." Bartlett lays down his brush, palette, and mahl-stick, dusts his fingers, puts them in his pockets, and comes and stands before Cummings, on whom, seated, he bends a curious look. _Bartlett._--"And do you mean to tell me, you hardened atheist, that you don't believe in the doctrine of future punishments? What are they going to do with _you_ in the next world? And that picture-dealer? And _me_? Two hun-- It's an outrage! It's--the picture wasn't worth fifty, by a stretch of the most charitable imagination! Two hundred, d-- Why, Cummings, I'll paint no end of Old Girls, First and Last Grey Hairs--I'll flood the market! Two-- Good Lord!" Bartlett goes back to his easel, and silently resumes his work. After a while: "Who's been offered up?" _Cummings._--"What?" _Bartlett._--"Who's the victim? My patron? The noble and discriminating and munificent purchaser of The Old Girl?" _Cummings._--"Oh! Mrs. Bellingham. She's going to send it out to her daughter in Omaha." _Bartlett._--"Ah! Mrs. Blake wishes to found an art museum with that curiosity out there? Sorry for the Omaha-has." Cummings makes a gesture of impatience. "Well, well; I won't then, old fellow! I'm truly obliged to you. I accept my good fortune with compunction, but with all the gratitude imaginable. I say, Cummings!" _Cummings._--"Well?" _Bartlett._--"What do you think of my taking to high art,--mountains twelve hundred feet above the sea, like this portrait of Ponkwasset?" _Cummings._--"I've always told you that you had only to give yourself scope,--attempt something worthy of your powers"-- _Bartlett._--"Ah, I thought so. Then you believe that a good big canvas and a good big subject would be the making of me? Well, I've come round to that idea myself. I used to think that if there was any greatness in me, I could get it into a small picture, like Meissonier or Corot. But I can't. I must have room, like the Yellowstone and Yo-Semite fellows. Don't you think Miss Wyatt is looking wonderfully improved?" _Cummings._--"Wonderfully! And how beautiful she is! She looked lovely that first day, in spite of her ghostliness; but now"-- _Bartlett._--"Yes; a _phantom_ of delight is good enough in its way, but a _well woman_ is the prettiest, after all. Miss Wyatt sketches, I think I told you." _Cummings._--"Yes, you mentioned it."