drive away, waving their handkerchiefs all down the

avenue, and singing:

“O Warwick Hall, dear Warwick Hall,
The joys of Yule now homeward call.
Yet still we'll keep the tryst with you,
Though for a time we say adieu.

Adieu! Adieu !"

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX
TILBEN FOUNDATIONS

CHAPTER VII

IN JOYCE'S STUDIO

THE short winter day was almost at an end. High up in the top flat of a New York apartment house, Joyce Ware sat in her studio, making the most of those last few moments of daylight. In the downstairs flats the electric lights were already on. She moved her easel nearer the window, thankful that no sky-scraper loomed between it and the fading sunset, for she needed a full half hour to complete her work.

There were a number of good pictures on the walls, among them some really fine old Dutch interiors, but any artist would have turned from the best of them to study the picture silhouetted against the western window. The girlish figure enveloped in a long loose working apron was all in shadow, but the light, slanting across the graceful head bending towards the easel, touched the brown hair with glints of gold, and gave the profile of the earnest young face, the distinctive effect of a Rembrandt portrait.

Wholly unconscious of the fact, Joyce plied her brush with capable practised fingers, so absorbed in her task that she heard nothing of the clang and roar of the streets below, seething with holiday traffic. The elevator opposite her door buzzed up and down unheeded. She did not even notice when it stopped on her floor, and some one walked across the corridor with a heavy tread. But the whirr of her door bell brought her to herself with a start, and she looked up impatiently, half inclined to pay no attention to the interruption. Then thinking it might be some business message which she could not afford to delay, she hurried to the door, brush and palette still in hand.

"Why, Phil Tremont!" she exclaimed, so surprised at sight of the tall young man who filled the door-way that she stood for an instant in openmouthed wonder. Where did you drop from? I thought you were in the wilds of Oregon or some such borderland. Come in."

"I got in only a few hours ago," he answered, following her down the hall and into the studio. "I have only been in town long enough to make my report at the office. I'm on my way out to Stuart's to spend Christmas with him and Eugenia, but I couldn't resist the temptation of staying over a