't_
you think that even now I could support myself by making pictures for
magazines? Don't you, mother dear?"

"Rue, as your father explained, a special course of instruction is
necessary before one can become an artist----"

"But I _do_ draw very nicely!" She slipped from her chair, ran to the
old secretary where the accumulated masterpieces of her brief career
were treasured, and brought them for her parents' inspection, as she
had brought them many times before.

Her father looked at them listlessly; he did not understand such
things. Her mother took them one by one from Ruhannah's eager hands
and examined these grimy Records of her daughter's childhood.

There were drawings of every description in pencil, in crayon, in
mussy water-colours, done on scraps of paper of every shape and size.
The mother knew them all by heart, every single one, but she examined
each with a devotion and an interest forever new.

There were many pictures of the cat; many of her parents, too--odd,
shaky, smeared portraits all out of proportion, but usually
recognisable.

A few landscapes varied the collection--a view or two of the stone
bridge opposite, a careful drawing of the ruined paper mill. But the
majority of the subjects were purely imaginary; pictures of demons and
angels, of damsels and fairy princes--paragons of beauty--with
castles on adjacent crags and swans adorning convenient ponds.

Her mother rose after a few moments, laid aside the pile of drawings,
went to the kitchen and returned with her daughter's schoolbooks and
lunch basket.

"Rue, you'll be late again. Get on your rubbers immediately."

The child's shabby winter coat was already too short in skirt and
sleeve, and could be lengthened no further. She pulled the blue
toboggan cap over her head, took a hasty osculatory leave of her
father, seized books and lunch basket, and followed her mother to the
door.

Below the house the Brookhollow road ran south across an old stone
bridge and around a hill to Gayfield, half a mile away.

Rue, drawing on her woollen gloves, looked up at her mother. Her lip
trembled very slightly. She said:

"I shouldn't know what to do if I couldn't draw pictures.... When I
draw a princess I mean her for myself.... It is pleasant--to pretend
to live with swans."

She opened the door, paused on the step; the frosty breath drifted
from her lips. Then she looked back over her shoulder; her mother
kissed her, held her tightly for a