One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was busily painting. His cheery little wife--pretty enough in spite of her thirty-seven years--was reading the interesting items in the morning papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music, dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of "Ah! che la morte ognora." But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor door partially opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan painted stood in the aperture--a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair falling around her. "Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most becoming with my new seal-skin set." "Ask papa." "If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a poor live girl, it does not interest him." "Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically." "Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?" "When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it will do you good to hear it." "Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted. "Well, Kitty child, what do you want?" "See here." "Tickets for Booth's?" "Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just about the same numbers." "Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?" Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different things. "But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?" "Of course I did mamma--I told him in the nicest kind of way that we must only be dear friends, and so on." "Then why did he send these tickets?" "Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men enjoy burning." "Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from papa simply to tell me this?" "No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."