But Miss Swan received both of the girls very politely, and chatted with 'Manda Grier, whose conversation, in defiance of any sense of superiority that the Swan girl or the Carver girl might feel, was a succession of laconic snaps, sometimes witty, but mostly rude and contradictory. Miss Carver made tea, and served it in some pretty cups which Lemuel hoped Statira might admire, but she took it without noticing, and in talking with Miss Carver she drawled, and said “N-y-e-e-e-s,” and “I don't know as I d-o-o-o,” and “Well, I should think as mu-u-ch,” with a prolongation of all the final syllables in her sentences which he had not observed in her before, and which she must have borrowed for the occasion for the gentility of the effect. She tried to refer everything to him, and she and 'Manda Grier talked together as much as they could, and when the others spoke of him as Mr. Barker, they called him Lem. They did not look at anything, or do anything to betray that they found the studio, on which Lemuel had once expatiated to them, different from other rooms. At last Miss Swan abruptly brought out the studies of Lemuel's head, and put them in a good light; 'Manda Grier and Statira got into the wrong place to see them. 'Manda blurted out, “Well, he looks 's if he'd had a fit of sickness in _that_ one;” and perhaps, in fact, Miss Carver had refined too much upon a delicate ideal of Lemuel's looks. “So he d-o-o-es!” drawled Statira. “And how funny he looks with that red thing o-o-o-n!” Miss Swan explained that she had thrown that in for the colour, and that they had been fancying him in the character of a young Roman. “You think he's got a Roman n-o-o-se?” asked Statira through her own. “I think Lem's got a kind of a pug, m'self,” said 'Manda Grier. “Well, 'Manda Grier!” said Statira. Lemuel could not look at Miss Carver, whom he knew to be gazing at the two girls from the little distance to which she had withdrawn; Miss Swan was biting her lip. “So that's the celebrated St. Albans, is it?” said 'Manda Grier, when they got in the street. “Don't know 's I really ever expected to see the inside 'f it. You notice the kind of oilcloth they had on that upper entry, S'tira?” They did not mention Lemuel's pictures, or the artists; and he scarcely spoke on the way home. When they parted, Statira broke out crying, and would not let him kiss her. XX. “I'm afraid your little friend at the St. Albans isn't altogether happy of late,” said Evans toward the end of what he called one of his powwows with Sewell. Their talk had taken a vaster range than usual, and they both felt the need, that people know in dealing with abstractions, of finally getting the ground beneath their feet again. “Ah?” asked Sewell, with a twinge that allayed his satisfaction in this. “What's the matter with him?” “Oh, the knowledge of good and evil, I suspect.” “I hope there's nothing wrong,” said Sewell anxiously.