pleted her collection, of a pleasant
magenta colour, had only just been acquired. She called them "My sweet
rainbow of piggies," and often when she came down to breakfast,
especially if Withers was in the room, she said: "Good morning, quaint
little piggies." When Withers had left the room she counted them.

The corner where the street took a turn towards the church, just below
the window of her garden-room, was easily the most popular stance for
sketchers. You were bewildered and bowled over by "bits." For the most
accomplished of all there was that rarely attempted feat, the view of
the steep downward street, which, in spite of all the efforts of the
artist, insisted, in the sketch, on going up hill instead. Then, next in
difficulty, was the street after it had turned, running by the
gardener's cottage up to the churchyard and the church. This, in spite
of its difficulty, was a very favourite subject, for it included, on the
right of the street, just beyond Miss Mapp's garden wall, the famous
crooked chimney, which was continually copied from every point of view.
The expert artist would draw it rather more crooked than it really was,
in order that there might be no question that he had not drawn it
crooked by accident. This sketch was usually negotiated from the three
steps in front of Miss Mapp's front door. Opposite the
church-and-chimney-artists would sit others, drawing the front door
itself (difficult), and moistening their pencils at their cherry lips,
while a little further down the street was another battalion hard at
work at the gabled front of the garden-room and its picturesque bow. It
was a favourite occupation of Miss Mapp's, when there was a decent
gathering of artists outside, to pull a table right into the window of
the garden-room, in full view of them, and, quite unconscious of their
presence, to arrange flowers there with a smiling and pensive
countenance. She had other little playful public pastimes: she would get
her kitten from the house, and induce it to sit on the table while she
diverted it with the tassel of the blind, and she would kiss it on its
sweet little sooty head, or she would write letters in the window, or
play Patience there, and then suddenly become aware that there was no
end of ladies and gentlemen looking at her. Sometimes she would come out
of the house, if the steps were very full, with her own sketching
paraphernalia in her hands and say, ever so coyly: "May I scriggle
throu