een to
observe the process of painting in oils by one who understands it."

How he reconciled this statement with the fact that he was not looking
at the picture at all, but at the little white hand that was deftly
applying the brush, and the beautiful little head that was moving itself
so gracefully about while contemplating the work, is more than we can
explain.

Soon the painter became still more deeply absorbed in her work, and the
pupil more deeply still in the painter. It was a magnificent sweep of
landscape that lay before them--a glen glowing with purple and green,
alive with flickering sunlight and shadow, with richest browns and reds
and coolest greys in the foreground; precipices, crags, verdant slopes
of bracken, pine and birch woods hanging on the hillsides, in the middle
distance, and blue mountains mingling with orange skies in the
background, with MacRummle's favourite stream appearing here and there
like a silver thread, running through it all. But Barret saw nothing of
it. He only saw a pretty hand, a blushing cheek and sunny hair!

The picture was not bad. There was a good deal of crude colour in the
foreground, no doubt, without much indication of form; and there was
also some wonderfully vivid green and purple, with impossible forms and
amazing perspective--both linear and aerial--in places, and Turneresque
confusion of yellow in the extreme distance. But Barret did not note
that--though by means of some occult powers of comprehension he
commented on it freely! He saw nothing but Milly Moss.

It was a glorious chance. He resolved to make the most of it.

"I had no idea that painting in oils was such a fascinating occupation,"
he remarked, without feeling quite sure of what he said.

"I delight in it," returned the painter, slowly, as she touched in a
distant sheep, which--measured by the rules of perspective, and regard
being had to surrounding objects--might have stood for an average
cathedral.

Milly did not paint as freely as usual that afternoon. There was
something queer, she said, about the brushes. "I _can't_ get it to look
right," she said at last, wiping out an object for the third time and
trying again.

"No doubt," murmured the youth, "a cottage like that must be difficult
to--"

"Cottage!" exclaimed Milly, laughing outright; "it is not a cottage at
all; it's a cow! Oh! Mr Barret, that is a very poor compliment to my
work and to your own powers of discernment."

"N