d I'm very stupid," I whimpered. "I
don't mind working on and trying to make the best of a thing. And it's
not the wind or the sand, though it has got dreadfully into the paints,
particularly the Italian Pink; but what makes me hopeless, Clement, is
that I don't believe it would look well if I could paint it perfectly.
It looked lovely as we were driving home the other evening, but now----
Just look at those fields, Clem; I _know_ they're green, but really and
truly I _see_ them just the same colour as this road, and I don't think
there is the difference of a shade between them and that gate-post. What
shall I do?"

A tear fell out of my eyelashes and dropped on to my river. Clement took
the sketch from me, and dried up the tear with a bit of blotting-paper.

Then to my amazement he gave rather a favourable verdict. It comforted
me, for Clement never says anything that he does not mean.

"It's not _half_ bad, Margery! Wait till you see mine! How did you get
the tints of that hillside? You've a very truthful mind, that's one
thing, and a very true eye as well. I do admire the way you abstain from
filling up with touches that mean nothing."

"Oh, Clement!" cried I, so gratified that I began to feel ready to go on
again. "Do you really think I can make anything of it?"

"Nothing more," said Clement. "Don't put another touch. It's unfinished,
but no finishing would do any good. We've got an outlandish subject and
a bad time of day. But keep it just as it is, and three months hence, on
a cool day, you'll be pleased when you look at it."

"Perhaps if I went on a little with the foreground," I suggested; but
even as I spoke, I put my hand to my head.

"Go to Eleanor in the ravine, at once," said Clement imperatively. "I'll
bring your things. What _did_ make us such fools as to come out without
umbrellas?"

"We came out in the cool of the morning," said I, as I staggered off;
"besides, it's almost impossible to hold one and paint too."

Once in the ravine, I dropped among the long grass and ferns, and the
damp, refreshing coolness of my resting-place was delicious.

Eleanor was not faint, neither had she been crying; but she was not much
happier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group of
birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But when
she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her
very outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came to
colo