I think
that she still contemplated appearing in it at the Bureau.
In a week the picture was complete. My model and I went out and celebrated
appropriately but frugally.
A small label in the corner gave the title to the picture--"My old Mammy."
My friend gave my work a place in his window, and my acquaintances
generally accorded unqualified praise. The older ones recognized Mammy at
once.
Pending a purchaser for this, I started my deferred subject, and changed it
into a figure piece. A lovely friend was my model. She contemplated the
flowers and letters. Above the old piece of furniture on which she leaned
there hung a photograph, a sword, and a sash--a more striking suggestion of
my first title, "Dead Hopes." How little I dreamed, as I worked, that there
was such happy irony in the name, and that Mammy could ever, in the
remotest way, conduce to such a result!
Nearly every morning I hovered about my friend's establishment at a
sufficient distance to elude suspicion of my anxiety, but easily in visual
range of my exhibit.
One morning it was not visible. I rushed to the store with a throbbing
breast.
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