"But I will hunt for it, papa," said she; "I will get the lines for you.
Don't you trouble."

"No, no, no, child," said he, with somewhat of a pompous air. "You have
this new character to study. You must not allow any trouble to disturb
the serenity of your mind while you are so engaged. You must give your
heart and soul to it, Gerty; you must forget yourself; you must abandon
yourself to it, and let it grow up in your mind until the conception is
so perfect that there are no traces of the manner of its production
left."

He certainly was addressing his daughter, but somehow the formal phrases
suggested that he was speaking for the benefit of the stranger. The prim
old gentleman continued; "That is the only way. Art demands absolute
self-forgetfulness. You must give yourself to it in complete surrender.
People may not know the difference; but the true artist seeks only to be
true to himself. You produce the perfect flower; they are not to know of
the anxious care--of the agony of tears, perhaps you have spent on it.
But then your whole mind must be given to it; there must be no
distracting cares; I will look for the missing lines myself."

"I am quite sure, papa," said Miss Carry, spitefully, "that she was far
more anxious about these cutlets than about her new part this morning.
She was half a dozen times to the kitchen. I didn't see her reading the
book much."

"The _res angustæ domi_," said the father, sententiously, "sometimes
interfere, where people are not too well off. But that is necessary.
What is not necessary is that Gerty should take my troubles over to