und was packed with them, from the plebeian Cabbage, to the lordly
Marechal Neil. Three golden buds of the latter drooped over the white
ribbon bow at her waist: and a bowl of dark red ones stood on the
untidy table behind her.

But even the subtle-sweet influence of the day failed to sooth the
creases out of her forehead. For the panel picture on her easel would
not 'behave'; her scattered ideas refused to range themselves: and the
fount of inspiration seemed dried up within her: trifles insignificant
enough to the 'lay' mind: but for the artist, whether of pencil, or
brush, or chisel, they spell despair. All the morning she had wrestled
with the picture half defiantly, as it were against the stream. Such
work is seldom satisfactory; and since lunch she had been engaged in
blotting it all out ruthlessly, bit by bit.

The refractory creation of her spirit was a small panel in oils: a
subject picture, more or less symbolical, such as she did not often
attempt:--a broken hillside, of Himalayan character: bare blocks of
granite, dripping with recent rain, their dark corners and interstices
alight with shy wild flowers and ferns: a stone-set path zigzagging
among them, and half-way up the path, the figures of a man and woman:
the man ahead, upon a jutting ledge of rock, half turning with
down-stretched hand to draw the woman up after him, his vigorous form
backed by a sky of driving cloud. Of the woman's face, as she lifted
it to his, nothing could be seen save the outline of cheek and brow.
Her bowed shoulders and the lines of her figure expressed effort,
tinged with weariness. Below her, the topmost half of a deodar sprang
upward, a suggestion of wind in its drooping bows: and through torn
grey cloud, a sun-ray, striking across the two figures, waked coppery
gleams in the woman's dark hair, and points of brightness on drenched
rock and fern.

All these things were as yet conveyed rather than expressed: the
figures, in particular, being still little more than studies suggesting
both the strain and exhilaration of ascent. On a strip of cardboard
propped above the canvas, four lines were scribbled in pencil.

"Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn till night, my friend."

Quita read and pondered the words for the hundredth time: but the hint
of melancholy in them only increased her vague feeling of annoyance,
and the