They may or may not have known the deference with which he treated Alma’s work; but the girl herself felt that his abrupt, impersonal comment recognized her as a real sister in art.  He told her she ought to come to New York, and draw in the League, or get into some painter’s private class; and it was the sense of duty thus appealed to which finally resulted in the hazardous experiment she and her mother were now making.  There were no logical breaks in the chain of their reasoning from past success with boarders in St. Barnaby to future success with boarders in New York.  Of course the outlay was much greater.  The rent of the furnished house they had taken was such that if they failed their experiment would be little less than ruinous.

But they were not going to fail; that was what Alma contended, with a hardy courage that her mother sometimes felt almost invited failure, if it did not deserve it.  She was one of those people who believe that if you dread harm enough it is less likely to happen.  She acted on this superstition as if it were a religion.

“If it had not been for my despair, as you call it, Alma,” she answered, “I don’t know where we should have been now.”

“I suppose we should have been in St. Barnaby,” said the girl.  “And if it’s worse to be in New York, you see what your despair’s done, mamma.  But what’s the use?  You meant well, and I don’t blame you.  You can’t expect even despair to come out always just the way you want it.  Perhaps you’ve used too much of it.”  The girl laughed, and Mrs. Leighton laughed, too.  Like every one else, she was not merely a prevailing mood, as people are apt to be in books, but was an irregularly spheroidal character, with surfaces that caught the different lights of circumstance and reflected them.  Alma got up and took a pose before the mirror, which she then transferred to her sketch.  The room was pinned about with other sketches, which showed with fantastic indistinctness in the shaded gaslight.  Alma held up the drawing.  “How do you like it?”

Mrs. Leighton bent forward over her sewing to look at it.  “You’ve got the man’s face rather weak.”

“Yes, that’s so.  Either I see all the hidden weakness that’s in men’s natures, and bring it to the surface in their figures, or else I put my own weakness into them.  Either way, it’s a drawback to their presenting a truly manly appearance.  As long as I have one of the miserable objects before me, I can draw him; but as soon as his back’s turned I get to putting ladies into men’s clothes.  I should think you’d be scandalized, mamma, if you were a really feminine person.  It must be your despair that helps you to bear up.  But what’s the matter with the young lady in young lady’s clothes?  Any dust on her?”

“What expressions!” said Mrs. Leighton.  “Really, Alma, for a refined girl you are the most unrefined!”

“Go on—­about the girl in the picture!” said Alma, slightly knocking her mother on the shoulder, as she stood over her.