and her companion, sitting down
beside a smooth rock, from which he wiped the dust with the sleeve of
his shirt, began, slowly and with compressed lips, frowning eyebrows,
and many a hard-drawn sigh, to draw the portrait of a horse.

Adams was not an artist. The drawing might have served almost equally
well for an ass, or even for a cow, but Sally watched it with intense
interest.

"You see, dear," said the artist, commenting as the work proceeded,
"this is his head, with a turn-up--there--like that, for his nose. A
little too bluff, no doubt, but no matter. Then comes the ears, two of
'em, somewhat longish--so, not exactly fore an' aft, as I've made 'em,
but ath'ort ships, so to speak, only I never could understand how
painters manage to make one thing look as if it was behind another. I
can't get behind the one ear to put on the other one nohow."

"A puzzler!" ejaculated Sally.

"Just so. Well, you have them both, anyhow, only fore an' aft, as I
said before. Well, then comes his back with a hollow--so, for people to
sit in when they go cruisin' about on shore; then here's his legs--
somethin' like that, the fore ones straight an' the aft ones crooked."

"Has he only two legs," asked Sally, in surprise, "one before an' one
behind?"

"No, dear, he's got four, but I've the same difficulty wi' them that I
had wi' the ears--one behind the other, you know. However, there you
have 'em--so, in the fore-an'-aft style. Then he's got hoofs at the end
o' the legs, like the goats, you know, only not split up the middle,
though why they're not split is more than I can tell; an' there's a sort
o' curl behind, a little above it--the fetlock I think they call it, but
that's far beyond my powers o' drawin'."

"But you've forgot the tail," said Sally.

"So I have; think o' that now, to forget his tail! He'd never do that
himself if he was alive. It sticks out from hereabouts. There you have
it, flowin' quite graceful down a'most to his heels. Now, Sally, that's
a horse, an' not much to boast of after all in the way of a likeness,
though I say it that shouldn't."

"How I _should_ like to see a real one!" said the girl, gazing intently
at the wild caricature, while her instructor looked on with a benignant
smile.

"Then I often think of the poor people Mr Young is so fond of telling
us stories about," continued Sally, as they resumed their upward path,
"though I'm much puzzled about them. Why are they poor? Why