Supper over, the table was cleared and a big Bible laid before the Frau Pastorin, who, as a clergyman’s widow, felt that it was her duty to set a good example to the sojourners beneath her roof.  Hedwig Vogel, however, did not stay to the reading:  she went up to her bare, lonely rooms.  They were totally lacking in character, for neither the woman nor the artist was betrayed in their appointments.  Everything was scrupulously clean and painfully neat about them.  German-fashion, the square table was pushed close to the sofa, and held a lamp and four never-opened books.  Here FrA¤ulein Vogel seated herself, turned up the lamp-wick, and then crossed her long, lean, sinewy hands in her lap.  The tall white porcelain stove made the room so warm that she presently rose and set a window open a little way.  She was indeed a dangerous, unconventional creature, a Prussian who cared neither for great ladies nor draughts.  She stood there, feeling the damp air of early spring blow in her face.  From the beer-hall near by came the sound of music; over the pavement rattled a cart drawn by two weary dogs and followed by a yet wearier peasant-woman; with a brave clink-clank of spurs and sword strode by a brave lieutenant.  Above all these sounds FrA¤ulein Vogel’s quick ear caught a light foot-fall on the bare stairs without.  She crossed the parlor and flung open the door.

“Mees.”

“Yes, most gracious lady.”

“Ridiculous,—­’gracious lady’!  Come in.”

Mees obeyed, and took the place of honor on the sofa beside the painter.

“I have a favor to ask,” she said, with a deprecatory smile, “Don’t call me Mees, please.  It does not mean anything.”

“Shall I say Mees Varing?” asked the painter, with a struggle to pronounce the name properly.

“Unless you like Kitty better,” said Mees.

“Kitty—­Kitty.”  FrA¤ulein Vogel repeated it gravely.  “Kitty.”  She smiled.  “Kitty Varing, of New York.  Now I have it all.”

“No,” said Kitty, “not quite.  Of Withlacootchie, New York.”

They both laughed, the Indian name was so unmanageable.  Kitty finally wrote it down, and the painter pronounced it over and over again.  At last she straightened up, and said sternly,

“But where is the picture, Mees—­Kitty?”

“Ah, you don’t want to see it,” Kitty exclaimed; “and I don’t want to show it to you.  I tell you I have no talent.  I suppose, though, patience must tell in the end,” she added, half to herself.

“Yes, it will tell,” said the painter grimly.  “It will tell—­something.  Go get your picture now.”

Kitty crossed the corridor to her own little room.  There was the picture, —­a sketch in oils of the best-known model in DAYsseldorf, this time rigged out as a Roman peasant.  The girl looked at the picture with a frown; she seized it as though she would dash it on the floor in scorn, but, checking the impulse, she carried it to FrA¤ulein Vogel.