n flowers. She
loves all yellow flowers. She said so when I brought her the daffodils;
and these are yellower, ever so much yellower.'

Her mother came in at this moment, and, taking our little girl on her
knee, she told her that she was quite right; they were very beautiful in
her eyes, and she would put them at once in her own room, where she
could have them all to herself.

And that is how it came about, that, as I lay in bed, the last thing my
eyes fell upon was Ella's bunch of yellow ragwort; and what could be
more natural than that I should go to sleep and dream of Runswick Bay?

It seems only yesterday that I was there, so clearly can I recall it,
and yet it must be twenty years ago. I think I must write an account of
my visit to Runswick Bay and give it to Ella, as it was her yellow
flowers which took me back to the picturesque little place. If she
cannot understand all I tell her now, she will learn to do so as she
grows older.

I was a young man then, just beginning to make my way as an artist. It
is slow work at first; until you have made a name, every one looks
critically at your work; when once you have been pronounced a rising
artist, every daub from your brush has a good market value. I had had
much uphill work, but I loved my profession for its own sake, and I
worked on patiently, and, at the time my story begins, several of my
pictures had sold for fair prices, and I was not without hope that I
might soon find a place in the Academy.

It was an unusually hot summer, and London was emptying fast. Every one
who could afford it was going either to the moors or to the sea, and I
felt very much inclined to follow their example. My father and mother
had died when I was quite a child, and the maiden aunt who had brought
me up had just passed away, and I had mourned her death very deeply, for
she had been both father and mother to me. I felt that I needed change
of scene, for I had been up for many nights with her during her last
illness, and I had had my rest broken for so long, that I found it very
difficult to sleep, and in many ways I was far from well. My aunt had
left all her little property to me, so that the means to leave London
and to take a suitable holiday were not wanting. The question was, where
should I go? I was anxious to combine, if possible, pleasure and
business--that is to say, I wished to choose some quiet place where I
could get bracing air and thorough change of scene, and where I c