w'ich is in the Free Library.
We're goin' that way, ain't we?"

"That's our direction, certainly; though we're a goodish way off."

"No 'urry," said Tilda graciously. "We'll get there in time."

Mr. Jessup smiled.

"Thank you. I am delighted to help, of course. You'll find friends
there--at Holmness?"

She nodded.

"Though, as far as that goes," she allowed yet more graciously, "I'm
not conplainin'. We've made friends all the way yet--an' you're the
latest."

"I am honoured, though in a sense I hardly deserve it. You did--if I may
say--rather take charge of me, you know. Not that I mind. This is my
picnic, and I don't undertake to carry you farther than Tewkesbury.
But is does occur to me that you owe me something on the trip."

Tilda stiffened.

"You can put us ashore where you like," said she; "but one d. is all I
'ave in my pocket, as may be 'twould a-been fairer t' a-told yer."

The young man laughed outright and cheerfully as he headed the canoe for
shore. They were close upon another weir and an ancient mill, whence,
as they landed for another portage, clouds of fragrant flour-dust issued
from the doorway, greeting their nostrils.

"It's this way," he explained. "I'm here to sketch Shakespeare's
Country, and the trouble with me is, I've a theory."

"It's--it's not a bad one, I 'ope?"

She hazarded this sympathetically, never having heard of a theory.
It sounded to her like the name of an internal growth, possibly
malignant.

"Not half bad," he assured her. He was cheerful about it, at any rate.
"I'm what they call an Impressionist. A man--I put it to you--has got
to hustle after culture in these days and take it, so to speak, in
tabloids. Now this morning, before you came along, I'd struck a
magnificent notion. As I dare say you've been told, the way to get at
the essence of a landscape is to half-close your eyes--you get the
dominant notes that way, and shed the details. Well, I allowed I'd go
one better, and see the whole show in motion. Have you ever seen a
biograph--or a cinematograph, as some call it?"

"'Course I 'ave," said Tilda. "There was one in Maggs's Circus."

"Then you'll have no trouble in getting the hang of my idea.
My complaint with Art is that it don't keep itself abreast of modern
inventions. The cinematograph, miss, has come to stay, and the Art of
the future, unless Art means to get left, will have to adopt its
principles . . . Well, I couldn't put Shakes