"What do you call an artist?" queried Geisner, partly for the sake of the argument, partly to see the little woman flare up. "An artist is one who feels--that's all. Some people can fashion an image in wood or stone, or clay, or paint, or ink, and then they imagine that they are the only artists, when in reality three-quarters of them aren't artists at all but the most miserable mimics and imitators-- highly trained monkeys, you know. Nellie is an artist. She can understand dumb animals and hear music in the wind and the waves, and all sorts of things. And to her the world is one living thing, and she can enjoy its joys and worry over its sorrows, and she understands more than most why people act as they do because she feels enough to put herself in their place. She is such an artist that she not only feels herself but impels those she meets to feel. Besides, she has a freshness that is rare nowadays. I'm very fond of Nellie." "Evidently," said Geisner; "I've got quite interested. Is she dressmaking still?" "Yes; I wanted her to come and live with us but she wouldn't. Then Harry got her a better situation in one of the government departments. You know how those things are fixed. But she wouldn't have it. You see she is trying to get the girls into unions." "Then she is in the movement?" asked Geisner, looking up quickly. Mrs. Stratton lifted her eye-brows. "In the movement! Why, haven't you understood? My dear Geisner, here we've been talking for fifteen minutes and--there's Nellie's ring. Harry, go and open the door while I pour the coffee." The opera cloak dropped from her bare shoulders as she rose from the stool. She had fine shoulders, and altogether was of fashionable appearance, excepting that there was about her the impalpable, but none the less pronounced, air of the woman who associates with men as a comrade. As she crossed the room to the verandah she stopped beside the gloomy young man, who had said nothing. He looked up at her affectionately. "You are wrong to worry," she said, softly. "Besides, it makes you bad company. You haven't spoken to a soul since we came in. For a punishment come and cut the lemon." They went out on to the verandah together, her hand resting on his arm. There, on a broad shelf, a kettle of water was already boiling over a gas stove. "What are you thinking of," she chattered. "We shall have some more of your ferocious poetry, I suppose. I notice that about you, Arty. Whenever you get into your blue fits you always pour out blood and thunder verses. The bluer you are the more volcanic you get. When you have it really bad you simply breathe dynamite, barricades, brimstone, everything that is emphatic. What is it this time?" He laughed. "Why won't you let a man stay blue when he feels like it?"