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where my father’s cousin and best friend from his youth, William Bede, had a large farm. Here we might remain while we tried our luck drumming up business in the town center.
    But dear Tom was up before dawn, I later discovered, and out reconnoitering the hamlet—which consisted of more than a dozen dwellings within the village, two taverns, a tailoring shop above the general store, a printing shop, bookstore, hat and palm leaf shops, and the like. It seemed a worthy and industrious community and augured well, in Tom’s estimation, for initiating our venture.
    Even while I was sharing a pot of tea with our loquacious landlady, one Mrs. Grundage, Tom entered the kitchen grinning above a sheaf of handbills.
    â€œAnd what’s this, Tom?” I asked. Our hostess seemed rather stunned by his entry.
    â€œYou shall see,” he said, coming over to me and laying the pile, face down, before me. He winked at Mrs. Grundage, and she began to laugh in anticipation. “I’ve not been idle!” he proclaimed, as if to accuse me, justly I may say, of having been a lie-a-bed. He then turned over the top bill.
    CORRECT LIKENESSES
    painted and prepared with elegance for purchase
    by
    Mrs. ALLEGRA FULLERTON
    and her assistant
    Mr. THOMAS WENTWORTH
    at the Lodging House of Mrs. T. W. P. Grundage
    This last line had been written in by a careful hand. After a suitable space the rest of the advertisement, in print again, continued as follows:
    Upon request, Mrs. Fullerton and Mr. Wentworth
will wait on patrons at their respective places
of residence.
    PRICES AS FOLLOW
    (full satisfaction or no pay)
    Side Views painted in full colors .............. $4.00
    Front Views .............. $8.00–10.00
    Miniatures on Ivory .............. $10.00–12.00
    (poplar board or canvas, prices range according to patron’s specifications)
    â€œIt was Mrs. Grundage who suggested I add ‘full satisfaction or no pay,’” Tom said, “as the first step to gaining the confidence of possible sitters.” Mrs. Grundage beamed. “So I took the liberty, Allegra, seeing you needed your sleep.”
    But no commissions came our way, and we began to fear impoverishment before we had truly begun. It was Mrs. Grundage, again, who finally suggested a solution.
    â€œYou have no specimens yet!” she said. “It seems you must have specimens to interest anyone. So why don’t you paint me and my little girl and the baby? For the room and board of this week, that is.”
    Gladly, I did. Rumor of the specimens got about, and in very short order we had many callers coming to see “whether a woman could paint likenesses.”
    Some of these must have approved, for thanks to Mrs. Grundage and Tom, I commissioned five oil portraits—two miniatures and three front views—in Lakeworth.
    â€œNearly fifty dollars!” Tom crowed. “What might we not accomplish, my dear sister, in the municipalities of the Commonwealth!”
    â€œWe have made a good start, Tom,” I agreed, “but as Miss Rosslinden said while sitting for me, likeness-takers seem to have been passing Lakeworth by more often than not. So the competition is likely to be greater in larger towns.”
    I thanked him again, however, for all his efforts in procuring clients and performing every drudgery attendant to my craft, all the more freeing me to process quickly each likeness and move on to the next. Broad of shoulder and crowned with a smooth mane of wavy blond hair, Tom’s kempt and handsome appearance, as much as his energy, I credited to much of our first success.
    My words to Tom, however, prophesied our experience in Fitchburg, for indeed our luck did turn. It was not only that the town center seemed to swarm with hucksters and peddlers of every stripe, including likeness-takers whose advertisements preceded ours, but that a certain meanness of spirit, which soon sent us elsewhere, seemed woven into the fabric