He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the picture was better than the young man had known. “Will you wrap it, please?” she asked. “I will take it with me.” He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!--he kept repeating it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him, and the papers said coal would be high that winter--those facts seemed to have something to do with forty dollars. _Forty dollars!_--it was hammering at him, overwhelmed him, too big a sum to contend with. With long, grim stroke he tore off the wrapping paper; stoically he began folding it. But something was the matter. The paper would not go on right. Three times he took it off, and each time he could not help looking down at the picture of the pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a little farther; each time it seemed bigger--bigger even than forty dollars; it seemed as if it _knew things_--things more important than even coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place was a noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was eagerly hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a girl who probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at all--then a light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as from a cooling breeze--and _anyway_, suddenly furious at the lady, furious at himself--“he'd be gol-_darned_ if it wasn't _her_ picture!” He walked firmly back to the front of the store. “I forgot at first,” he said, brusquely, “that this picture belongs to someone else.” The lady looked at him in astonishment. “I do not understand,” she said. “There's nothing to understand,” he fairly shouted, “except that it belongs to someone else!” She turned away, but came back to him. “I will give you fifty dollars for it,” she said, in her quiet way. “Madame,” he thundered at her, “you can stand there and offer me five hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is not for sale. Do you _hear_?” “I certainly do,” replied the lady, and walked from the store. He was a long time in cooling off. “I tell you,” he stormed to a very blue Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, “it's hers--it's _hern_--and anybody that comes along here with any nonsense is just going to hear from _me_!”