fide my child to anything so irregular as the scratching-along system."
"If you confide her to me, Mr. Ellice, I shall take care of her, and, what's more, I shall make her happy. I suppose that would be satisfactory, wouldn't it?"
"I should wish to see the means to that end more clearly than I do now. Are you by chance in debt?"
"Oh, nothing to speak of. One good sale would clear off all I owe."
"Manette tells me you wish to be married very soon. How do you propose in that event to provide for your wife's comfort?"
"Oh, I'd look out for that. I'd manage somehow to make her comfortable. If I keep this studio we might stay on in it for a while. Nettie says she could get on capitally here. There's a little room next door we could have for a bedroom."
"And your meals,—how should you arrange about them?"
"Oh, somehow," said Frank. "For breakfast I've got a famous coffee-pot that will make you a first-class cup of coffee in three minutes by the watch. Ever seen one of them? You have your coffee ground to a fine powder, you know, and then—"
"But, Mr. Roscoe, my impression is that Manette requires more than a cup of coffee for her morning meal."
"Why, of course we would fill in with other things, too."
"I am afraid Manette would not 'fill in' much, according to your plan."
"She wouldn't starve,—never you fear about that," said Frank reassuringly.
"Has it ever occurred to you in making these highly picturesque arrangements that you might have a family?"
"A family!" echoed Frank, opening his brown eyes widely. "Oh, you mean a baby."
"Yes. Possibly babies."
"Great heavens! not twins, I hope. But one wouldn't bother me. I like children. I know a fellow,—Karl Mill, who does such jolly marines, you know: he lives in two rooms, no larger than this, with his wife and three kids; they get along first-rate. And, besides, by the time the baby arrives I may be able to take a house on the avenue and set Nettie up in style. One thing is certain, Mr. Ellice, I'm willing to risk it, and so is she."
"Ah! possibly you think that my affection for my daughter would operate in your favor financially?"
"By Jove! no, sir! You do me injustice. I'm not above a helping hand in my profession, but I want nothing from you but Nettie. I love her, and I'll take care of her and the baby too, and I'll make her happy."
"And how do you suppose, Mr. Roscoe, that your wife would tolerate the presence in her home of such young persons as I saw but now upon the platform yonder?"
Frank Boscoe put down his palette and brushes and stepped before Mr. Ellice. There was an angry light in his laughing eyes and a hot flush on his cheek.
"Mr. Ellice," he said, "I wonder you're not ashamed to make such a remark as that. You insult your daughter as well as me. I haven't so far forgotten my dead mother," and he lifted the battered hat from his head, "as to be capable of bringing my wife into an atmosphere of impurity. That's not in my line at all. As for poor Becky, she's a good, modest girl, and supports an old blind father and a troop of younger sisters and brothers. There's no more harm in her being here than in your own visit."
"Ah! Possibly I am wrong, Mr. Roscoe, but I have always been under the impression that the young women who offered themselves as models were an abandoned class; but there may be, as you say, honorable exceptions."
"I didn't say Becky was an exception, Mr. Ellice. There are many as good as she. There's not what you would call an 'abandoned' character on my list, I don't want that sort. Nettie has seen the models about lots of times. She doesn't mind them in the
