“Of course!” cried Polly.  “I know it ’s hard work; but who cares whether a thing is hard or not, if one loves it?  I don’t mind work; I only mind working at something I dislike and can never learn to like.  Why, Margery, at the Sunday-school picnics you go off in the broiling sun and sit on a camp-chair and sketch, while I play Fox and Geese with the children, and each of us pities the other and thinks she must be dying with heat.  It ’s just the difference between us!  You carry your easel and stool and paint-boxes and umbrella up the steepest hill, and never mind if your back aches; I bend over Miss Denison’s children with their drawing or building, and never think of my back-ache, do you see?”

“Yes; but I always keep up my spirits by thinking that though I may be tired and discouraged, it is worth while because it is Art I am working at; and for the sake of being an artist I ought to be willing to endure anything.  You would n’t have that feeling to inspire and help you.”

“I should like to know why I would n’t,” exclaimed Polly, with flashing eyes.  “I should like to know why teaching may not be an art.  I confess I don’t know exactly what an artist is, or rather what the dictionary definition of art is; but sit down in Miss Burke’s room at the college; you can’t stay there half an hour without thinking that, rather than have her teach you anything, you would be an ignorant little cannibal on a desert island!  She does n’t know how, and there is nothing beautiful about it.  But look at Miss Denison!  When she comes into her kindergarten it is like the sunrise, and she makes everything blossom that she touches.  It is all so simple and sweet that it seems as if anybody could do it; but when you try it you find that it is quite different.  Whether she plays or sings, or talks or works with the children, it is perfect.  ’It all seems so easy when you do it,’ I said to her yesterday, and she pointed to the quotation for the day in her calendar.  It was a sentence from George MacDonald:  ‘Ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil.’  Now it may be that Miss Mary Denison is only an angel; but I think that she ’s an artist.”

“On second thoughts, perhaps you are right in your meaning of the word, though it does n’t follow that all teachers are artists.”

“No; nor that all the painters are,” retorted Polly.  “Think of that poor Miss Thomas in your outdoor class.  Last week, when you were sketching the cow in front of the old barn, I sat behind her for half an hour.  Her barn grew softer and softer and her cow harder and harder, till when she finished, the barn looked as if it were molded in jelly and the cow as if it were carved in red sandstone.”

“She ought not to be allowed to paint,” said Margery decisively.

“Of course she ought n’t!  That’s just what I say; and I ought not to be allowed to keep boarders, and I won’t!”

“I must say you have wonderful courage, Polly.  It seems so natural and easy for you to strike out for yourself in a new line that it must be you feel a sense of power, and that you will be successful.”