xman tells me you have accomplished a good
expenditure of paint."

"I have only brought those, sir, I did not suppose you cared to examine
my school work."

"Some other time I may do so; but do you say all these have been done
since you came here?" He picked one up, not noticing apparently my reply,
and recognizing the view, instantly his face brightened.

"Ah, you have shown taste in this selection; it is one of my favorite
views. I am glad you prefer nature to mere copying from another's work
which is like accepting other men's ideas, when one is capable of
originating them of one's own." He looked at it closely and for some time
in silence, then with no further word of praise he criticised it
mercilessly, while he pointed out fault after fault. I could only
acquiesce in the correctness of his criticisms, and only wondered I
should have been so blind as to permit such glaring faults to creep into
my work. Of the many scores of drawing and painting lessons I had
previously taken, not any twelve of them, to say the least, had widened
my knowledge of art as this hour spent with my guardian over that first
picture had done. I looked at him with a provoked sort of admiration,
surprised that one who knew so well how nature should be imitated, did
not, himself, attempt the task, and angry both with him and myself that I
was being subjected to such humiliation, while I listened to him as he
convinced me the picture I thought so good was a mere daub. I was wise
enough, and proud enough too, not to make any sign that I was undergoing
torture, and with stoical calmness permitted him, without a single
remonstrance, to examine every picture there, even the one containing
Thomas in his Sunday suit, as he stood surveying with idealized face,
a superb patch of cabbages.

"Fancy has run riot with you there entirely; if the gardener were
surveying his sweetheart in the church choir he might have some such
seraphic expression, but it is utterly thrown away on those vegetables;
his face and his broadcloth coat are in perfect harmony," Mr. Winthrop
said, with even voice, as he held aloft the picture that all the other
members of his household had so greatly admired.

"You think, then, the time spent in these has been quite wasted?" I tried
to say calmly.

"A genuine artist, no doubt, would say without a moment's hesitation that
the paint was thrown away. As for the time, he would probably say a young
girl's time was of little conse