“Entirely unnecessary, Minnie.  What! is not genius before rules?  Why should I imitate Titian’s tints, when I can copy my own fancies?  When I get my ideal perfected, you will soon see it real.  I can copy it in half an hour.  If it is in me, it will come out of me, like Curran’s eloquence.”

“But,” says Minnie, doubtfully, looking at the easel where the golden curls and heavenly eyes of an angel are obscured by the russet-brown of a beginning wood-nymph, “why don’t you keep to one idea, Fred?”

“Oh, because I choose to be fancy-free.  I will not have my imagination trammelled.  Let it wander at its own sweet will.  You will see, Minnie, by-and-by.  Now, here I have been getting up a head,—­not painting it, you know.  Sometimes I can almost see the eyes.  But they elude me,—­I haven’t quite command of them yet.  But I shall get it,—­I shall get it yet!”

Minnie remembers the same things said to her ever since she was a child.  Fred used to tell it all over to her then.  He was so much older than she was,—­fourteen years,—­that she was quite flattered by being thought worthy to listen to his theories of all sorts.  However, since she had come to think for herself, one by one all these theories had faded out of her mind and seemed like last year’s clouds.  She had discovered that it was useless to controvert them, and generally listened with some pretence of patience.  The last time she had said, at the first pause,—­

“Now, Fred, I must go.  But I want you to contribute a little, if you will, to my poor’s library, and if you will, a little, too, to poor Sophia.”

“Little Sister Minnie,” answered Fred, curtly, “don’t annoy me.  If you enjoy digging out beggar-women, and adorning them with all sorts of comforts and pleasures, do it.  I don’t ask you not to.  Will you give me the same privilege of following my own pleasure?”

“But, Fred!” said Minnie, astonished, “only last week, what did you do for poor Sophia?  More than I could in a year,—­two, three years!  For you know I have only my thirty dollars quarterly for everything, and sometimes I have so little to give!”

“Why do you give, then, dear Minnie?” said Fred, languidly smiling.

“Oh, if you ask that, why did you give, last Monday?  You gave—­let me see—­fifty-four dollars; every cent you had in your purse.  Oh, the things I bought for her with it!  Paid rent, bought medicine, blankets,—­oh, so many needed comforts!  Now, why did you give?” said Minnie, with a triumphant smile,—­“for now I have him,” she thought.

“To save myself pain,—­that’s all.”

Minnie looked puzzled.

“Nothing else, I do assure you.  No very great virtue in that.  The fact was, I was bored, and, to tell the truth, somewhat shocked, by your ‘poor Sophia’s’ ailments, which I came upon so inopportunely,—­and I was glad to empty my pockets to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling.”

“Well, then, save yourself pain again, Fred,—­for I assure you she suffers constantly for want of simple alleviations, which a small sum of money would afford her.  Oh, she needs so many things, and everything is so dear!  And she has so many helpless children, and no husband, and so bowed with rheumatism”—­