l satisfied
with bewailing over and over again that black's black. One wants to find
out why it's black, and if anything would make it white. Besides, I
think perhaps when one looks into one's grievances, one sees excuses for
people--there are two sides to every question."

"There'll be one, two, three," said Emma, looking slowly round and
counting the party with a comical imitation of Eleanor's thoughtful
air--"there'll be fifteen sides to every question by the time we've all
learnt to talk like you, my dear."

Eleanor burst out laughing, and we most of us joined her to such good
purpose, that Madame overheard us, and thought it prudent to break up
our sitting, though we had only had a short twelve minutes' rest.

Eleanor not only set the fashion of a more reasonable style of chat in
our brief holiday hours, but she was apt to make lessons the subject of
discussions which were at first resented by the other girls.

"I can't think," she began one day (it was a favourite way with her of
opening a discussion)--"I can't think what makes Mr. Henley always make
us put the shadows in in cobalt. Some shadows are light blue certainly,
I think, especially on these white roads, but I don't think they are
always; not in Yorkshire, at any rate. However, as far as that goes, he
paints his things all in the same colours, whatever they're meant for;
the Bay of Naples or the coast of Northumberland. By the bye, I know
that I've heard that the shadows on the snow in Canada are really
blue--bright blue."

"You're blue, deep blue," said Emma. "How you can talk shop out of
lesson hours, Eleanor, I can't conceive. You began on grammar the other
day, by way of enlivening our ten minutes' rest."

"I'm very sorry," said Eleanor: "I'm fond of drawing, you know."

"Oh, do let her talk, Emma!" cried Peony. "I do so like to hear her. Why
are the shadows on the snow blue, Eleanor?"

"I can't think," said Eleanor, "unless it has something to do with
reflection from the sky."

Eleanor was not always discreet enough to keep her opinion of Mr.
Henley's style to herself and us. She was a very clever girl, and, like
other very young people, her cleverness was apt to be aggressive;
scorned compromises, and was not always sufficiently respectful towards
the powers that be.

Her taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with
having a reputation for talent in this line, when her water-colour
copies were not so effective as Lucy'