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Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress."
As he undressed he told me how for many years the strange woman had been roving in the roads "up hill and down dale, thousands an' thousands o' miles," and never reaching the end of her journey. In a moment we heard a low wail above the sound of the breeze that shook the leaves of the old "popple" tree above our roof. "What's that?" I whispered. "I guess it's ol' Kate ravin'," said Uncle Peabody.
The popple trees always get green first." At other times he talked about the people. "It will be a rest just to get back among people who aren't ready to tread on your head in order to lift themselves up. I believe a year among those kind, unhurried people will glve me all the material I'll need for years.
"All his portraits seem to proclaim what a gentleman he is, and how he fascinates women! They're not pictures of Mrs. or Miss So-and-so, but simply of the impression Popple thinks he's made on them." Mrs. Fairford smiled. "I've sometimes thought," she mused, "that Mr. Popple must be the only gentleman I know; at least he's the only man who has ever told me he was a gentleman and Mr.
Popple, like all great men, had at first had his ups and downs; but his reputation had been permanently established by the verdict of a wealthy patron who, returning from an excursion into other fields of portraiture, had given it as the final fruit of his experience that Popple was the only man who could "do pearls."
I remember well our silent going to bed that night and how I lay thinking and praying that I might grow fast and soon be able to take the test of manhood that of standing in a half-bushel measure and shouldering two bushels of corn. By and by a wind began to shake the popple leaves above us and the sound soothed me like the whispered "hush-sh" of a gentle mother.
Carl announced to one poplar stick, "I could lick you! I'm a gen'ral, I am." The stick made no reply whatever, and he contemptuously shied it out into the chickweed which matted the grubby back yard. This necessitated his sneaking out and capturing it by stalking it from the rear, lest it rouse the Popple Army.
Taddi eh? ah! popple. Mr. Addison, this is Jacques Caradoc, the best and stoutest hunter between Hudson's Bay and Oregon." Jacques smiled and bowed modestly as Mr. Addison shook his hand. The worthy hunter did indeed at that moment look as if he fully merited Mr. Kennedy's eulogium.
"Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?"
She was even conscious that he was trying to provoke in her some reciprocal sign of recognition; and the attempt drove her to the haughty study of her programme. "Why, there's Mr. Popple over there!" exclaimed Mabel Lipscomb, making large signs across the house with fan and play-bill.
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