"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings, I'll do something we can send out to him--if you wish." "What do you mean by a sketch?" "Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human, veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very dainty, very sweet, and smiling. Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her." "It is my wife's sister--a quick study from life--just the kind of thing Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have when it was done. Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so dreadful, after all. "Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made her seem again the untaught girl she really was. As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered. Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience than these artists, who studied him from every point of view. "Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is straight--that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that 'the house'--that is, the bank--is protected. My machines was always straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was 'fixed' in me favor." Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be going." He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he explained, and dutifully rose. "Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again." Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you." She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow." Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again. "She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?" he inquired. "Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.