THE CASE OF MARY ELLEN
had been printed in letters reaching half across the page.
Mary Ellen Tatum! The name occurred in a three-line preface to the translation of an art note from a Paris newspaper. This note described, with genuine French enthusiasm, the deep impression that had been made on artists and art circles in Paris by a portrait painted by a gifted young American artist, Mlle. Marie Helen Tatum. It is needless to transcribe the eulogy—I have it in my scrap-book. It was a glowing tribute to a piece of work that had created a sensation, and closed with the announcement that another genius had "arrived."
The comments of the Boston editor, following the sketch, declared that the friends of Miss Mary Ellen Tatum in Boston, where she spent her early years and where she was educated, were proud of her remarkable success, and predicted for her a glorious career as an artist.
I had no more than cut this piece from the news-paper when the door-bell rang, and as there happened to be no one in the house to answer it at the moment, I went to the door myself, the clipping still in my hand, and there before my eyes was Colonel Bolivar Blasengame, his fine face beaming
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