He tried to appear sympathetic. “I know a fellow who gets a thousand dollars for a portrait, and he has only just commenced. You can’t help but succeed, Miss Price, really!” She gave him a grateful glance. “Oh, if I _could_!” she said, anxiously. “I taught school one winter, but the pay was so small. And I’ve tried—you will laugh, Mr. Archibald, at my telling you these things—but I’ve tried story writing. I was _so_ hopeful about it, and it took as many as ten rejections before I became convinced; and now, if my Art fails me——” She gave a little fluttering sigh. “I think you have talent.” “Perhaps it is only enthusiasm——” “That amounts to the same thing. It will keep you up to your work. They used to tell me I had talent, but I had no enthusiasm, so I dropped it. I wish to encourage you,” he added; “I hope you will go on. It takes a lot of work, but you have just the right temperament. You _will_ work. You _will_ get on, and when you become celebrated, Miss Price, you won’t forget your old friends?” He realized that it was a rather bold step forward, and he trembled for her reply. “I shall always recommend your house,” she said, a little stiffly, making him feel more than ever her aristocratic superiority to landlords, “and I shall always remember your kindness. We went to at least six boarding-houses until we saw your sign—we saw the landladies. Really, Mr. Archibald, you have no idea how vulgar and unartistic _most_ of the houses were. There was always a disagreeable odor, as if somebody was frying something. If I _do_ succeed, as I wish, and make friends, and get to be known, and all, you may be certain that I shan’t forget you. I may organize an Art class, and take the whole house myself!” He went no further. It was enough to him, as he sat opposite her in his evening dress, his rich opal, set with diamonds, flashing on his white shirt-front, his lawn tie, low shoes, white waistcoat—everything in the latest and most expensive style—it was enough for Mr. Jerome Archibald to sit there and smoke his delicate Havana, and reflect that he at least had her promise to do what she could to recommend his boarding-house! The next day, at dinner, he again suggested, in an offhand way, that Miss Price should turn her attention to portrait-painting. Miss Perkins seriously objected at once. “Your father would never give his consent,” she said. “There was old Mr. Raymond, who lived on the Poor Farm, because he found portrait-painting didn’t pay.” “Mr. Raymond painted dreadful, hideous caricatures,” said Elvira. “He painted my mother’s portrait, and father is always throwing him in my face. But I don’t know. I have no one to begin on except aunt, and I have tried and tried, and I can’t get anything but the expression of her spectacles.” Even Aunt Perkins laughed at this a little. “Begin on me,” ventured Archibald. “Call it the ‘Portrait of an Ideal Landlord.’”