copper beech, a silver larch, or a
few flowering shrubs cast strong shadows on the dark, pellucid mirror
beneath. On a cunningly contrived promontory of brown rock stood a
white marble statue of Venus Aphrodite, and the ripples from the
cascade seemed to endow with life the shimmering reflection of the
goddess.

Beyond the lake a smooth lawn, dotted with fine old oaks and
chestnuts, rose gently for a quarter of a mile to the Italian gardens
in front of the house. To the left, the park was bounded by woods. To
the right was another wood, partly concealing a series of ravines and
disused quarries. Altogether a charming setting for an Elizabethan
manor, pastoral, peaceful, quite English, and seeming on that placid
June morning so remote from the crowded mart that it was hard to
believe the nearest milestone, with its "London, 30 miles."

Had Trenholme glanced at his watch he would have discovered that the
hour was now half past seven, or nearly an hour later than he had
planned. But Art, which is long-lived, recks little of Time, an
evanescent thing. He was enthusiastic over his subject. He would make
not one sketch, but two. That lake, like the gates, was worthy of
immortality. Of course, the house must come first. He unpacked a
canvas hold-all, and soon was busy.

He worked with the speed and assured confidence of a master. By years
of patient industry he had wrested from Nature the secrets of her
tints and tone values. Quickly there grew into being an exquisitely
bright and well balanced drawing, impressionist, but true; a harmony
of color and atmosphere. Leaving subtleties to the quiet thought of
the studio, he turned to the lake. Here the lights and shadows were
bolder. They demanded the accurate appraisement of the half closed
eye. He was so absorbed in his task that he was blithely unconscious
of the approach of a girl from the house, and his first glimpse of
her was forthcoming when she crossed the last spread of velvet sward
which separated a cluster of rhododendrons in the middle distance from
the farther edge of the lake.

It was not altogether surprising that he had not seen her earlier. She
wore a green coat and skirt and a most curiously shaped hat of the
same hue, so that her colors blended with the landscape. Moreover, she
was walking rapidly, and had covered the intervening quarter of a mile
in four minutes or less.

He thought at first that she was heading straight for his lofty perch,
and was per