e portrait. The chin
is charmingly modelled, and she has captured just the roguish expression
of the original. Don't touch it again" (speaking to Lesbia). "It's
exactly right as it is. You'll probably spoil it if you try to do any
more to it. I hope you're going on with art?"

"I'm afraid not." Lesbia's voice was sad.

"What a thousand pities! You ought to go and study in Paris, at
Mesurier's studio. He's the coming man! Tell your people to send you.
You'd get on very well there. Tell them I say so."

Mr. Moxon moved on, following Miss Tatham, to inspect other details in
the school. He left Lesbia in a ferment. That an artist--and a great
artist too--should have condescended to praise her work, and encourage
her to go on, raised her to the clouds. Oh, if only she could take this
kind advice and go to Paris to study! But, alas! those things were for
fortunate girls who had friends who could afford to send them abroad,
not for luckless people like herself, who were fated to toil away at
humdrum occupations. It was no use mourning over what could not be
helped, a course at a Paris studio was as impossible as a tour round the
world, and there was not the slightest prospect of it ever coming within
her reach. She almost wished he had never mentioned the dazzling idea,
it was too tantalizing to be obliged to turn her back upon it.

Though Lesbia might have to forgo many beautiful art dreams, she made
the best at any rate of the opportunities which Kingfield High School
offered to her. Miss Joyce had instituted a sketching class for the
summer term, and took about half a dozen of the girls out with her on
Friday afternoons. At first they went by train into the country, but she
found the journey wasted so much time, going and returning, that she
looked about for some pretty bit near at hand, which would be within
their powers, and finally fixed on Pilgrims' Inn yard. It was a
picturesque old court, and had the advantage of being quiet. As it was
private ground, no tiresome urchins from the street might stray in and
molest them, and no passers-by would stop to stand and watch their work,
a species of persecution from which they had suffered considerably in
country villages. The old black-and-white house, with its gables and
mullioned windows, its nail-studded doors, its gallery, and the benches
alongside the entrance, made several excellent subjects, and afforded
points of view for all her students. They settled themselves on