“Aunt says you _can’t_ be making any money. Now, we don’t think it is right to stay another day and be _burdens_, do you see?” A solemn pause. “Isn’t that what they are talking about so much now in the novels?” he asked, at length. “What?” “The terrible New England conscience?” “Right is right and wrong is wrong, Mr. Archibald, disguise it how we may,” and Elvira compressed her pretty lips firmly. Archibald puffed on his cigar, lazily. “I wasn’t sure,” he said, as if a doubt had crept into his mind. She glanced at him impatiently. “Can’t you _see_ how wrong it would be for us to stay here and enjoy all we have in your beautiful house, knowing that we were swindling you?” She stamped her foot. “Mercy!” she added, half to herself, “what _can_ you be made of?” He hastened to a display of rugged conscience, which relieved her. “Oh, of course, I see how wicked it would be if you _did_ swindle; but I’m making money! Really—I haven’t spent the twenty dollars board-money yet. Oh, pray rest assured—I shan’t lose. I will tell you when I run behind.” A great sense of relief seemed to come over the girl. “But it is all we can pay. I told father I would not ask for more. Father said he knew it would take more, but I said I would give up Art first.” “Oh, I say!” he protested. “And to-morrow I am going to begin taking lessons, but I _will_ not call on father for another cent. He shan’t be able to throw it in my face that it turned out as he said, and that I was wrong. When he and I dispute it always does turn out as he says—this time it _shan’t_.” Archibald laughed a little. The poor fool, don’t you know, was so captivated that every word, every action of the girl was music to him. The two weeks of observation had told on her dress. To-night she wore a white muslin, elaborated with pretty ribbons. She no longer seemed especially rustic to him. He noticed that she was doing her hair now in the prevailing style. “By Jove!” he said to himself, “I’ll see that she comes out at the Patriarchs’ next winter!” This was his highest earthly happiness for a _débutante_. “I am going to make money,” she went on; “I’m going to paint vases, plates, odds and ends, pot-boilers, you know, and so father shan’t know what it costs.” [Illustration: [Woman]] “Oh, by the way, if you do,” he pretended, lazily blowing out a ring of smoke, “I happen to know a fellow—an old friend of mine—who gives very fair prices for those sort of things. Now, I am sure he will take any gimcrack you may do.” Somehow the word gimcrack displeased her. “My Art work has always been thought very pretty in East Village,” she said. “It would never _sell_, but it was thought pretty. I used to long to help father—and our family is so large, you know, four little brothers and two sisters younger than I am—and now, if I only _could_ get on, and help father! Oh, Mr. Archibald, you don’t know how _little_ law there is to go round in East Village!” She heaved a deep sigh.