with Terry, and where one day they had a picnic tea and
boiled a kettle on a camp fire, there were occasional drives in the pony
trap, and a few bicycle rides, with Terry on the luggage-carrier because
she could not leave him at home. She felt rather like "Sindbad the
Sailor" laden with his "Old Man of the Sea" as she rode along with a
pair of small arms clutched tightly round her waist, but she found the
treat an excellent bribe for good behaviour and certainly a means of
keeping her frisky youth out of mischief. There was one delight in her
visit which compensated for many drawbacks. Mr. Stockton was painting a
picture of his little son, and every morning Terry had a sitting in the
studio. Lesbia came also, and the good-natured artist lent her a canvas,
tubes, palette, and brushes, and let her try her 'prentice hand at
portraiture in oils. To sit close to Mr. Stockton and watch him paint
was a revelation. Lesbia took to the work like a duck to water, and
produced something really so very like Terry that her effort won words
of warm approval.

"It's wonderfully good," declared Mr. Stockton. "You've evidently got
some notion of drawing in you. You ought to go and study at a school of
art. How old are you? Only sixteen? What you want is to join a life
class. You'd soon get on. It isn't everybody who can catch a likeness.
The colour of that background is not at all bad for a beginner. My
advice is 'Go ahead!'"

It was kind advice, and made Lesbia blush with pleasure, but, as she
thought privately, it was all very well to say "go ahead" when she had
absolutely no prospect of joining a life class. She did not possess an
oil paint-box, and even had she one there would be no time among her
multitudinous lessons for the practice of portraiture. If her future was
to consist of studying, passing exams, and afterwards teaching, Art
would have little chance to develop.

"It's a pity," sighed Lesbia. "Because people work so much better at
things they really and truly like. I hold with the Montessori system in
that. If Miss Tatham gave me my choice I'd never look at Latin or Maths
again. No! I'd just paint, paint, paint, from morning till night, and be
absolutely happy. That's my ideal of life. But I shall never get
it--never! So I suppose it's no use grousing. Marion's got an oil
paint-box by the by. I wonder if she'd swop it for my camera? That's
rather a brain-wave. I'll ask her when I get back. If Joan would sit for
me on Sa