CHAPTER IV.

A RUSTIC MODEL.

DURING all this time Edith had not been idle. She had worked on hard at her drawing, and had studied every work on art she could lay hands on. Morning, noon, and night, her one idea had been art, art, art. She believed that she at last had discovered her vocation, and her health, spirits, and temper had all improved in consequence. She had most perseveringly kept to simple black and white all through the winter, but now she felt an irresistible impulse to return to her beloved colour, and was surprised to find how much more power she had with her brush. Of course she resorted to her old model, Violet, but, as Violet objected to sitting still to have her face criticised by the schoolmaster, she had to seek another subject for her lessons.

One day as Stephen was starting for the Thicket little Sally happened to meet him with a great bunch of wild flowers in her hand, and her curly hair all blown about her face, the thought at once struck him that she would make a capital model, so he took his little pet with him, and a pretty rustic picture she made, with her lap full of wild flowers. She was extremely quiet and bashful all through the sitting, but on reaching home she rushed into the cottage and threw herself upon her mother's knee in the greatest excitement.

"Oh, mother! I've been drawed!" she exclaimed.

"Bless the child, what does she mean?" replied Mrs Poole, "I thought we'd lost you again, only I knew you were safe with Mr Rivers."

"I've been to the Thicket, mother, and I've been drawed-Miss Edith have been and drawed me."

'Drawed you," repeated Mrs Poole, still puzzled. "Yes, drawed me, mother, with her paints and things." "Took her picture, she means," explained the hopeful Bill.

"Lor, you don't say so?" cried Mrs Poole, "and in your old frock and pinner, well, I am ashamed! I never allows you go to the Thicket in them old things, you know, Sally."

'The Master, he took me," pleaded Sally.

"Well, it can't be helped then, but men never do know about girls' dress; he's as bad as your father, every bit. They're all as blind as bats, every blessed one of them."

"Miss Edith says please may I come again to-morrow," said Sally, "she wants to go on with her picture. May I go, mother?"

"That you shall, my pet," replied Mrs Poole, whose maternal pride was highly gratified, "and you shall go as Jim Poole's child should go, too, and not disgrace your old mother again."

So, in order that her mother should not be disgraced in the eyes of the gentry, poor little Sally was well scrubbed that night, and her pretty wavy hair screwed up into innumerable hard curl papers, which hurt her head so that she almost cried with the pain; but she had to endure the discomfiture till it was time for her to be dressed to go to the Thicket the next day, when her

mother with great care took out the papers and arranged the child's hair in a hundred tight corkscrew curls, and then dressed her in a stiffly starched pink frock, and a hat trimmed with ribbon of a vivid green set off by bright red poppies.

Mrs Poole turned her little girl round and round for final inspection before allowing her to start.

"Now, you look fit to be seen," she said with admiring glances, "I don't care who takes your pictur now, Sally."

So little Sally trudged off, feeling a very grand lady indeed, but Edith received her with dismay.

"Why, Sally, what have you been doing to yourself?" she said, "I wanted you to come just as you were yesterday."

"Mother was angry because I was so untidy yesterday," answered Sally, "she dressed me herself to-day." "Well, I can't paint you like that," said Edith, “will you ask your mother to send you in your old frock and hat next time? It really is very provoking," she went on, turning to Violet, "just look at her hair, did you ever see anything so fearful?"

"I think we had better damp it," suggested Violet.

So with the help of a wet sponge they managed to take out the offensive curls. But Sally was very crestfallen, for she had been quite proud of her own appearance; however, she was consoled by a large piece of cake; but Mrs Poole was not so easily appeased. She was extremely indignant when her child returned home with disorderly tangled hair, and a message requesting that she might come in her old frock and hat next time.

"Indeed, and you shall do no such thing," she said,

"I'm not going to have my daughter painted like a beggar child-if they want to make beggars they may go somewhere else for them; they need not try to disgrace me."

"Well, I'm like Miss Edith, I am," said the Blacksmith, "I likes my little Sal in her every-day things."

Mrs Poole would not give in till Edith called herself and tried to explain that it was not a portrait of Sally she was making, but only a fancy picture. But it was only under protest that the worthy woman at last consented to let her child go in her every-day clothes, and because she did not like to offend the ladies.

"I wish I could get some pictures to copy," said Edith one day to Stephen, "I believe that would help me."

"I have one or two of my father's," said Stephen, "I do not know whether you would consider them worth copying, but I should be very pleased to lend them to you."

"Oh, do please let me see them," replied Edith. So, at the next lesson the master arrived with a picture under his arm. He placed it on the easel for the ladies to examine. Stephen with a puzzled expression.

Violet started, and looked at

"Do you know who painted this?" she asked. "My father-Frank Rivers,” replied Stephen.

"I have seen the picture before, I am certain," said Violet, "but I cannot remember where."

"I hardly think you can have seen it," said Stephen, "for my mother has kept all the pictures hidden away, she never even showed them to me till the last time I

went home, she was so afraid I should want to be an artist."

"But I am certain I have seen it before," persisted Violet. After searching her memory for a few minutes she exclaimed, "I remember all about it now-it was in a street in London near the British Museum," then she stared hard at Stephen, "Yes," she went on, “and it must have been your mother that had it! I remember all about it now, I could not think who she reminded me of, she was a pretty old lady with white hair and very sad eyes."

It seemed like a dream to Stephen, he could not understand it.

"Yes," he replied, "that must have been my mother." Violet left the room and soon returned with a card in her hand.

"She gave me this card," she said, "for I took such a fancy to the picture that I wanted to borrow it for Edith to copy, and I was to write to her-I can't think how I came to forget it." She handed the card to Stephen, and there it was sure enough, "Mrs Rivers, Bookseller and Stationer, Artists' Materials, etc., King Street, Bloomsbury."

"Yes, that is my mother's card," said Stephen with a burning blush. He despised himself for that blush, but it would come.

Violet saw that he was embarrassed, and, with her usual kindness, tried to say something pleasant.

"What a sweet face your mother has!" she remarked. "It is very strange that I should have found her out. We had quite a long talk together, but, strangely enough, I never looked at her card.”