His friend was appalled. It took Peter some time to explain his uncle to Mrs. Hemingway. At the best, she thought, he had been insane. Not even the fact that Peter was co-heir to the Champneys fortune consoled her for what she considered a block to his happiness, a blight upon his life. The more she thought about that marriage, the more she disliked it; and as the time approached for Peter literally to sacrifice himself upon the altar, Mrs. Hemingway grew more and more perturbed, though she wasn't so troubled about it as Emma Campbell was. Emma's terror of "dat gal" had grown with the years. Neither of them ventured to question Peter, but Emma Campbell began to have frequent spells of "wrastlin' wid de sperit," and her long, lugubrious "speretuals" were dismal enough to set one's teeth on edge. She would howl piercingly: "Befo' dis time anothuh yeah, I ma-ay be gone, Een some ole lone-some graveyahd, O Lawd, ho-ow long?" She had left the high Montmartre cottage and had come down to keep house for Peter, his being a very simple menage. Oddly, the denizens of the Quartier didn't faze her in the least. She chuckled over them, an old negro woman's sinful chuckle. She made no slightest attempt to conquer the French language, which she didn't in the least admire. She learned the equivalents for a few phrases of her own,--"I hongry," "How much?" "Gimme dat," and "Mistuh Peter gone out," and on this slight foundation she managed to keep a fairly firm footing. The frequenters of Peter's studio were delighted with Emma Campbell; they recognized her artistic availability, and she and her black cat were borrowed liberally. As a rule, she was willing to lend herself to art, and was a patient model, until one rash young man took it into his head, that he must have Emma Campbell as a favorite old attendant upon the _Queen of Sheba_ he proposed to paint. He was a very earnest young German, that painter, speaking fairly good English. Emma had liked him more than most; but her faith received a blow from which it never recovered. That young man wished to paint her _au naturel_--her, Emma Campbell, who had been a member in good standing of the Young Sons and Daughters of Zion, the Children of Mary Magdalen, and the Burying Society of the Sons and Daughters of the Rising Star in the Bonds of Love! In the altogether! Emma Campbell gasped like a hooked fish. She made a nozzle of her mouth and protruded her eyes. She said ominously: "I bawn nekked, but I ain't had nuttin' to do wid dat. Dat de fust en de last time I show up wid mah rind out o' doors. I been livin' in clo'es evuh sence, en I 'speck to die in clo'es." The artist, who wanted Emma in his picture, tried to make her understand. He reasoned with her manfully: