“Show Mr. Prescott your sketch, Mrs. Doring, please,” said the Butterfly. Without demur Cartice opened her sketch book which she had brought to give the finishing touches to Gabriel’s picture. Prescott started in surprise when he saw it. After a moment or so of silence, he said, “It is admirable.” Mrs. Doring’s face glowed. A word of praise with the genuine ring in it warmed her heart to the core. “You draw well, too, Mrs. Layton,” he said, with a significant smile; “but not in the same way.” The Butterfly disdained to reply. Turning to Cartice, with the most winning deference, he said, “I should like to purchase your sketch, when completed, Mrs. Doring. I want to publish it. Write me a description of the services here this morning, to go with it, will you not? You _can_ write, I know without asking.” (Mentally--If she would write what her eyes tell it would move the world.) “Mr. Prescott is the editor of the _Register_,” said the Butterfly, by way of explanation. “I shall be delighted to do so,” Cartice answered, with swelling heart. “And do some more of the same kind of work afterward. I want things like that--plenty of them,” he said. As they talked together Gabriel Norris joined them, for he and the newspaper man were old friends. Cartice thanked him earnestly for his helpful words, saying frankly that she needed them as much as any of his hearers. Accustomed to the indifference and contempt of that part of the public which should have understood him, and to the stupidity of that which could not, he had long used himself to live without praise; but he was human, and his heart was lighter and warmer for a word of appreciation. Cartice walked home on air. The long lane of her misery was turning. A chance to work had come to her, and that meant a means of climbing out of the slough of despond. Idleness is the prelude to decay, an invitation to destruction. Enforced idleness, when the spirit longs for activity, and yet finds itself hedged in, helpless, cut off from opportunity, is the death of hope, the very day of doom for the soul. Now that was all over. The ladder that leads out of despondency and on to the best the world has to give was before her, her feet already on its first round. She could hardly wait to get home and write the description that was to accompany the drawing. It took shape as she went, one sentence chasing another in her mind, all eager for expression, which is but another word for life. The Butterfly had a new theme to chatter about--Prescott and his doings, though her companion scarcely heard her, so deep was she in her new dreamland of action.