't earn some money before
Saturday, I shan't know how to send the three pounds to Ellen."

"You had better," Mr. Waddington said gently, accept a trifling loan.

"Not if I can help it," Burton answered, hastily. "Thank you all the
same, Mr. Waddington, but I would rather not. We will see what
happens. I am going back now to try and write something."

They returned to the office. Burton pointed towards the easy-chair.

"Look!"

Mr. Waddington nodded. Alfred had propped up the book of engravings
before him, was holding a sheet of paper on the blotting-pad, and with a
pencil was intently copying one of the heads. They crossed the room and
peered over his shoulder. For an untrained child it was an amazing
piece of work.

"It is a Botticelli head," Mr. Waddington whispered. "Look at the
outline."

The boy glanced up and saw them standing there. He excused himself
gracefully.

"You don't mind, sir, do you?" he asked Mr. Waddington. "I took a
sheet of paper from your office. This head was so wonderful, I wanted
to carry away something that would remind me of it."

"If you like," Mr. Waddington offered, "I will lend you the book of
engravings. Then when your father is busy you could make copies of some
that please you."

The boy's cheeks were pink and his eyes soft.

"How lovely!" he exclaimed. "Father, may I have it?"

He left the office with the book clasped under his arm. On the way
home, Burton bought him some drawing-paper and pencils. For the
remainder of the afternoon they both worked in silence. Of the two, the
boy was the more completely engrossed. Towards five o'clock Burton made
tea, which they took together. Alfred first carefully washed his hands,
and his manners at table were irreproachable. Burton began to feel
uncomfortable. He felt that the spirit of some older person had come to
him in childlike guise. There was so little to connect this boy with
the Alfred of his recollections. In looking over his work, too, Burton
was conscious of an almost awed sense of a power in this child's fingers
which could have been directed by no ordinary inspiration. From one to
another of those prints, the outlines of which he had committed to
paper, the essential quality of the work, the underlying truth, seemed
inevitably to be reproduced. There were mistakes of perspective and
outline, crudities, odd little touches, and often a failure of
proportion, and yet that one fact always remained. The meaning of the
pict