“You know Miss Hazy in ‘Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch’—I say, wouldn’t you think she’d choke with all those beads—the one with the neck like a turtle. The ones with the antique jewelry are from Philadelphia—you can tell them with their evening cloaks on, too. They always have evening cloaks made out of some grand, old piece of tapestry taken from the top of the piano—” Then Nels led them forward and in a very few seconds they had passed the line of patronesses, thin and stout, there seemed to be no intermediates, and were free to look at the pictures and talk to their friends. Not for the world would Nels have dashed immediately to his own picture, though he knew to a fraction of an inch just where it was hung. But gradually they went to it, hung on the eye line and in the honour room, and there the three stood, the girls telling Nels how proud they were, and Nels, gratified at their praise, yet half fearing that some one would overhear, with the blood coming and going in his blond face until he looked like a girl despite his heavy shoulders and the big hands that looked more fitted for handling bricks than for painting delicate seascapes in water colour. Other people seeing their interest in the picture came and looked at it also. The “outsiders,” as Dorothy called them, standing up as close as their lorgnettes would permit, the artists, standing far off and closing one eye in absurd postures, while murmurs of “atmosphere,” “divine colour,” and other phrases and words entered the pink ears of Nels like incense in the nostrils of a god. So much engrossed was he in his little ceremony of success that he did not see Professor Pendragon approaching, though Dorothy and Ruth, without knowing his identity, were both conscious that the very tall, distinguished looking man was watching them, Ruth even guessed who he was before he laid his hand on Nels’ shoulder and spoke. It was not alone that he was tall—very tall even with the slight stoop with which he carried his shoulders; it was his face that first attracted Ruth’s attention, a keen, dark face with a high bridged nose and eyes from which a flame of perpetual youth seemed to flash. Yet it was a lined face, too, full of unexpected laugh wrinkles and creases and there were streaks of grey in the hair. “Well, Nels, you can’t complain of how the picture was hung this time.” His voice was like his face, poetic and with a hidden laugh in it. Nels turned, flushing redder than before. “Professor Pendragon, we’ve been looking for you. I knew you’d turn up here sooner or later and just waited. Here is Dot, I mean Miss Winslow, and Miss Mayfield.” “Thank you so much for letting me use your guest card. It was very kind of you, Professor Pendragon, and I’m having such a good time.”