ablutions, Miss Erskine removed the basin, while he took his former seat and quietly resumed work. The rest of the time passed pretty well in silence, Miss Erskine’s manner continuing as distant as ever. In all likelihood she would have bowed him out as before, had he not boldly put hesitation on one side, and marching straight up to her held out his hand. Jill, in unwilling acquiescence, placed hers in it.

“You mustn’t treat me altogether as a stranger,” he said. “Because we are teacher and pupil it doesn’t follow that we need be enemies also. Good morning, Miss Erskine; believe me, I am sincerely sorry for the injury that you have received.”

Jill smiled and a gleam of mischief shone in her eyes.

“I seem to have received so many this morning that I hardly know which you mean,” she said. “Do you allude to the hurt wrist or the very ungenerous manner in which you greeted me on my return?”

He coloured a little. Then he laughed.

“I was rather wild,” he admitted. “Saint John with my face, twentieth century get-up, and a nimbus, was a bit too much.”

“Indeed! I thought it rather clever,” Jill modestly remarked.

“Clever, yes; so it was, no doubt. If it hadn’t been so clever, it wouldn’t have been so annoying.”

“It has gone!” she cried, glancing at the table, though she knew already that it was not there. “You are not taking it with you?”

“Yes,” he answered coolly, “I am.”

“But, Mr St. John,” she remonstrated, “I think that I have some claim to my own work.”

“But, Miss Erskine,” he retorted, “I think that I have some claim to my own portrait.”

“Well, never mind,” said Jill. “I can sketch it again if I want to.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but I don’t think you will.”

“Perhaps not. I am not fond of wasting my time; it is too precious.”

St. John laughed and took up his hat.

“Good-bye again,” he said. “I hope by the next time I come that the hand will be quite well.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “I hope it will.”

He had not been gone half an hour when a most unusual thing occurred—unusual, that is, for number 144. It was, indeed, an unprecedented event within the memory of the present owners of the establishment, and quite a shock to the slovenly Isobel who opened the door to the very peremptory knock. It was, in short, a florist’s messenger with a large and magnificent basket of hot-house flowers for Miss Erskine. Not being the locality for such dainty gifts, it was not surprising that, to quote Isobel verbatim, it struck her all of a heap. She carried the basket up to the studio, another unusual event; on the very rare occasions when a parcel arrived for Miss Erskine it was left on the dirty hall table until she descended in quest of it. But Isobel’s femininity detected sentiment amid the fragrant scent of the delicate blossoms, and the vulgar side of her nature was all on the alert. No doubt she expected Miss Erskine to be equally excited and curious with herself, but Miss Erskine was not in the habit of gratifying other people at her own expense. She was standing in front of her easel roughly sketching with a piece of charcoal when Isobel bounced into the room, and only paused in her occupation to give a very casual glance at the flowers, and to evince some surprise at sight of them, and still more at having them brought up.

“One would think that I was a first floor lodger,” she exclaimed, turning back to her work again, “instead of merely the attics. You’ll be charging me for attendance soon, Isobel, if it goes on at this rate. Put it down on the table, please.”

Isobel looked distinctly disappointed.

“But you ain’t looked at ’em yet,” she said.

“I’ve seen flowers before,” Jill answered.

“They look very pretty and smell nice; but they’ll soon die in this turpentine atmosphere.”

“Then you can keep the barskit,” giggled the other. “I expect ’e thought o’ that; ’e aint so green as I took ’im to be. Fancy you ’avin’ a young man, Miss Herskine!”

Jill did look round then, and her glance was withering in the extreme.

“Explain your meaning, please,” she said. “I don’t understand jests like those.”

“It aint no jest,” replied Isobel somewhat abashed but grinning still despite the snub. “I didn’t mean no ’arm neither, only,” edging toward the door and preparing for flight, “when a gent takes to sendin’ flowers it’s like when the lodgers begins complainin’ o’ the charges—the beginnin’ of the hend, so to speak.”

The studio door slammed on her retreating figure, and her footsteps could be heard asserting themselves triumphantly in her descent—verily some people are born to make a noise in the world! Jill listened to them until they reached the next landing, then she laid down her charcoal and approached the table. For a minute she stood motionless regarding the flowers, then she smiled a little and bending forward drew out from among them a card though she hardly needed that to tell her from whom they came. “With Saint John’s compliments,” she read, and the smile on her lips widened until it broadened into a laugh.

“If all your relations possessed the same amount of tact,” she soliloquised, “what a model family yours would be.”

She laid her face against the flowers and laughed again, a soft quiet laugh full of enjoyment.

“What a bright patch of sunshine in the old studio,” she continued, smilingly caressing the blossoms, “and what a bright patch of sunshine in somebody’s heart, my dear saint, what a warm, brilliant, altogether delightful patch to be sure.”