80 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



about nine o'clock to the fresh and breezy note of 

 entertainment. The salon was asleep, and the 

 adjoining dining-room solemn, but from the kitchen 

 came cheer. The younger girl in her evening gown 

 was presiding over an ironing table, and rows of snow- 

 white, perfectly laundered linen, which included 

 even big impossible details, such as table-cloths and 

 sheets to mark the happy end of " the tale of a tub." 

 In the background was Mademoiselle Sans-Gene 

 neither tired nor triumphant, martyr nor saint. 

 The Canadian girls' artistic rendering of the daily 

 round, of course, has its other side ; unconsciously 

 she can treat art, that so rarely reveals itself amid 

 new conditions, as a matter of fact. In the days 

 when I first knew this family I found the elder to be 

 remarkably musical. Her technique was almost 

 brilliant, her memory sure, her sense of rhythm 

 correct, her ear true ; but her touch needed tone, 

 and her phrasing thought. I had studied music 

 in Europe, so for a time we worked together. She 

 worked well, sometimes almost with enthusiasm, 

 but she could never rise above the sway of bricks 

 and mortar, even in the most persuasive and directly 

 consoling of all the arts. She could work for the 

 effect of beauty, but not for just beauty. The 

 work of Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, and Liszt was 

 in complete possession of her fingers at the first 

 glance of the eye, and at home in her memory 

 almost as quickly. Her ear was so unerring that the 

 professor seldom dared to play before the pupil. 

 But she fell short of the artist in this same uncon- 

 scious manner in which the sister performed a 

 household task as an artist. Before the altar of 

 Apollo himself one felt she would have cried, 



