uaintance. You
will like him." Tom desired no new acquaintance at that moment, but he
followed Kenelm submissively.

CHAPTER IX.

"YOU see we are fated to meet again," said Kenelm, stretching himself
at his ease beside the Wandering Minstrel, and motioning Tom to do the
same. "But you seem to add the accomplishment of drawing to that of
verse-making! You sketch from what you call Nature?"

"From what I call Nature! yes, sometimes."

"And do you not find in drawing, as in verse-making, the truth that I
have before sought to din into your reluctant ears; namely, that Nature
has no voice except that which man breathes into her out of his mind?
I would lay a wager that the sketch you are now taking is rather an
attempt to make her embody some thought of your own, than to present her
outlines as they appear to any other observer. Permit me to judge for
myself." And he bent over the sketch-book. It is often difficult for
one who is not himself an artist nor a connoisseur to judge whether the
pencilled jottings in an impromptu sketch are by the hand of a professed
master or a mere amateur. Kenelm was neither artist nor connoisseur, but
the mere pencil-work seemed to him much what might be expected from any
man with an accurate eye who had taken a certain number of lessons from
a good drawing-master. It was enough for him, however, that it furnished
an illustration of his own theory. "I was right," he cried triumphantly.
"From this height there is a beautiful view, as it presents itself to
me; a beautiful view of the town, its meadows, its river, harmonized by
the sunset; for sunset, like gilding, unites conflicting colours, and
softens them in uniting. But I see nothing of that view in your sketch.
What I do see is to me mysterious."

"The view you suggest," said the minstrel, "is no doubt very fine, but
it is for a Turner or a Claude to treat it. My grasp is not wide enough
for such a landscape."

"I see indeed in your sketch but one figure, a child."

"Hist! there she stands. Hist! while I put in this last touch."

Kenelm strained his sight, and saw far off a solitary little girl, who
was tossing something in the air (he could not distinguish what), and
catching it as it fell. She seemed standing on the very verge of the
upland, backed by rose-clouds gathered round the setting sun; below lay
in confused outlines the great town. In the sketch those outlines seemed
infinitely more confused, being only indicated by