On the wall opposite the couch was pinned a flaming, gorgeous advertising picture of one of the new ferry-boats of the P. U. F. F. Railroad that had been built to cut down the time between Los Angeles and New York City one-eighth of a minute.
Hetty, turning her head during her continuous monologue, saw tears running from her guest’s eyes as she gazed on the idealized presentment of the speeding, foam-girdled transport.
“Why, say, Cecilia, kid,” said Hetty, poising her knife, “is it as bad art as that? I ain’t a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute. I’ll take it down if you say so. I wish to the holy Saint Potluck we had an onion.”
But the miniature miniature-painter had tumbled down, sobbing, with her nose indenting the hard-woven drapery of the couch. Something was here deeper than the artistic temperament offended at crude lithography.
Hetty knew. She had accepted her rôle long ago. How scant the words with which we try to describe a single quality of a human being! When we reach the abstract we are lost. The
