"Medora," declared the painter, "is as sensible and capable a girl as I know. Why, the very dress she wore that afternoon----You noticed it?" "I--I----" began Abner. "No, you didn't--of course you didn't. Well, she made every stitch of it with her own hands." "And those tea-cakes, that afternoon," supplemented Bond. "She made every stitch of _them_ with her own hands. She told me so herself, when I stayed afterward, to help wash things up." "I may have done her an injustice," Abner acknowledged. "Perhaps I might like to know her, after all." "You might be proud to," said Bond. "And the favour would be the other way round," declared the painter stoutly. Abner passed over any such possibility as this. "How long was she abroad?" he asked Bond. "Let's see. She studied music in Leipsic two years; she plays the violin like an angel--up to a certain point. Then she was in Paris for another year. She paints a little--not enough to hurt." "Leipsic? Two years?" pondered Abner. It seemed more staid, less vicious, after all, than if the whole time had been spent in Paris. The violin; painting. Both required technique; each art demanded long, close application. "Well, I dare say she is excusable." But here, he thought, was just where the other arts were at a disadvantage compared with literature: you might stay at home wherever you were, if a writer, and get your own technique. "And you have done it," said Bond. "I admire some of your things so much. Your instinct for realities, your sturdy central grasp--" "What man has done, man may do," rejoined Abner. "Yet what is technique, after all? There remains, as ever, the problem, the great Social Problem, to be solved." "You think so?" queried Bond. "Think that there is a social problem?" "Think that it can be solved. I have my own idea there. It is a secret. I am willing to tell it to one person, but not to more,--I couldn't answer for the consequences. If Miss Wilbur will just stop her ears----" The miniaturist laughed and laid her palms against her cheeks. "You are sure you can't hear?" asked Bond, with his eye on her spreading fingers. "Well, then"--to Abner--"there _is_ the great Human Problem, but it is not to be solved, nor was it designed that it should be. The world is only a big coral for us to cut our teeth upon, a proving-ground, a hotbed from which we shall presently be transplanted according to our several deserts. No power can solve the puzzle save the power that cut it up into pieces to start with. Try as we may, the blanket will always be just a little too small for the bedstead. Meanwhile, the thing for us to do is to go right along figuring, figuring, figuring on our little slates,--but rather for the sake of keeping busy than from any hope of reaching the 'answer' set down in the Great Book above." "But----" began Abner; his orthodox sensibilities were somewhat offended. Miss Wilbur, who had heard every word, laughed outright.