And as she worked Hope came, touching with rainbow hues the dreary outlines of her dismal thoughts, letting a little light in here and shutting a little dark out there, until the future began to look less drearily forlorn, and even became gradually endowed with pleasant happenings. She would sell her pictures, at first for low prices which would tempt purchasers; they would be liked, orders would pour in, she would raise her prices, earning more and more money. Living on quietly where she was, with good, kind Mrs. Austin, she would save what was not actually needed for her simple wants; and thus would begin that secret hoard which, she hoped, would one day grow to such dimensions that she could pay part of the debt her father owed Bernard Cameron. Then she grew happier every day, and as Mrs. Austin never failed to applaud loudly every little picture that was made she thought that others, too, would see some beauty in them. She knew, of course, that the good landlady was only an uncultivated, ignorant woman, and therefore one who could not be a judge of art, yet Doris fondly imagined that, having had a son who aspired to be an artist, Mrs. Austin must know more of such things than ordinary women of her class. She was disillusioned only too soon. There came a day upon which, having half a dozen little pictures finished, she ventured out bravely for the purpose of offering them for sale. Sam Austin, who took a great interest in the project, had, at his mother’s solicitation, written down for her the names and addresses of three or four picture-dealers, and, not content with doing that, he was most anxious to drive her to their shops in his cab, in order that she might make a good impression. "It won’t do, mother," he said, "to let them dealers imagine that she can hardly scrape together a living by her work. They would not think it very valuable in that case. Folks usually take us for what we appear to be in this world; and if we want to get on we must not let outsiders peep behind the scenes." Doris would have preferred to go alone, in order that she might make her little venture unobserved even by the cabman’s friendly eyes; but, not liking to grieve him and his mother, she accepted the offer of his cab, and was accordingly driven over to what she hoped would be the scenes of her triumph and success, but which proved instead to be those of bitter humiliation and disappointment.