"Stop!--stop!--I tell you, and hear me through. Oh!--you dreadful men! Just see what you have done: I had such a pretty little plan of my own--I've been thinking of it for days. I said to myself this morning: I'll go to the Inn after I have finished with Lemois--about six o'clock--when it is getting dark--quite too dark for a lady to be even poking about alone. They will all be out walking or dressing for dinner, and I'll slip into the darling Marmouset, just to warm myself a little, if there should be a fire, and then they will come in and find me and be so surprised, and before any one of them can say a word I will shout out that I have come to dinner! And now you've ruined everything, and I must say, 'Thank you, kind gentlemen'--like any other poor parishioner--and eat my bowl of bread and milk in the corner. Was there ever _anything_ so banal?--Oh!--I'm heartbroken over it all. No; don't say another word--please, papa, I'll be a good girl. So help me off with my wraps, dear Monsieur Louis. No; wait until I get inside--you see, I've been gardening all day, and when one does gardening----" The two were inside the Marmouset now, the others following, the laughter increasing as Louis led her to the hearth, where a fire had just been kindled. There he proceeded to unbutton her fur-lined motor-cloak--the laughter changing to shouts of delight when freeing herself from its folds. She stood before us a veritable Lebrun portrait, in a short black-velvet gown with wide fichu of Venetian lace rolled back from her plump shoulders, her throat circled with a string of tiny jewels from which drooped a pear-shaped pearl big as a pecan-nut and worth a king's ransom. "There!" she cried, her brown eyes dancing, her face aglow with her whirl through the crisp air. "Am I not too lovely, and is not my gardening costume perfect? You see, I am always careful to do my digging in black velvet and lace," and a low gurgling sound like the cooing of doves followed by a burst of uncontrollable laughter filled the room. If on her other visits she had captured us all by the charm of her personality, she drew the bond the tighter now. Then she had been the thorough woman of the world, adapting herself with infinite tact to new surroundings, contributing her share to the general merriment--one of us, so to speak; to-night she was the elder sister. She talked much to Herbert about his new statue and what he expected to make of it. He must not, she urged, concern himself alone with artistic values or the honors they would bring. He had gone beyond all these; his was a higher mission--one to bring the human side of the African savage to light and so help to overturn the prejudice of centuries, and nothing must swerve him from what she considered his lofty purpose--and there must be no weak repetition of his theme. Each new note he sounded must be stronger than the last.