uncurling in crown-like grace and beauty.

All so still; nothing but the sleepy, hushed murmur which comes from nowhere and yet fills the air of a summer's day. In the silence the call of the chough on the terrace could be distinctly heard right across the combe.

"Hark at Jacky!" said Elaine, with a little laugh. She rested her arms on the stile, and gazed away over the laughing meadow at the terrace. "I can see Aunt Ellen's head at the window," said she, "and here comes Aunt Char with a watering-pot. I hope she won't forget to water my nasturtiums just around the corner. Do you know I've got one of those new coral-colored ones, Jane?"

"If we don't push on, miss, we'll not get to Poole and back before tea," was Jane's remark.

"I do think it's a shame to send me all the way to Poole such a day as this," sighed the girl, as she reluctantly rose and continued her way.

She did not care in the least for the beautiful landscape. Its monotony was thoroughly distasteful to her. What mattered it whether beautiful or not, so long as it never changed? Variety was the need of her young life: something fresh—something different. Had she come upon a cargo of bricks and mortar, and workmen hacking down the finest trees in order to erect a villa, the sight would have afforded her the liveliest relief.

Presently they left the high-road, and crossed a bit of furzy common—just a small piece of waste ground, with the water lying in picturesque pools and clumps of starry yellow blossoms brightening the sandy soil.

As they passed along this marshy tract, Elaine raised her eyes to the road they had just quitted, which now ran along to their left, rather above the level on which they were walking; and she saw something which made her stop stone still and gaze round-eyed up at the road in a fashion which Jane could not understand till her own eyes followed the direction of her young mistress'. Then she beheld what was sufficiently unusual amply to justify the girl's surprise.

A broad back, covered with a light tweed coat, a soft, shapeless felt hat, two unmistakably masculine legs appearing on the further side of a camp stool:—a folding easel, bearing a canvas of fair dimensions, and a palette splotched thickly with color. The painter's back was towards them. His point of view lay inland, up the valley, and took in a corner of Poole farmhouse, and the grove of ash-trees behind it.

It may at first sound somewhat contradictory that an artist should be such a rara avis in so beautiful a spot as Edge Combe. But it is, nevertheless, true, and this for two good reasons. Firstly, the place is quite out of the beat of the usual Devonshire tourist. It is nowhere near Lynton, nor Clovelly, nor the Dart, nor Kingsbridge. No railway comes within five miles of it, and very few people have ever heard its name. Secondly, many landscape artists are dispirited by the cruel difficulty of getting a foreground. It is embarrassing to paint with the ground descending sheer away from your very feet, so as merely to present to you the summits of several trees, and the tip of a church spire in violent perspective. Equally inconvenient is it to take your seat at the foot of a steep hill, with intention to paint the side thereof. And so, as level ground there is none, the artists at Edge Combe are limited to those who, like Allonby, fall so headlong in love with the place that they make up their minds to paint somewhere, regardless of difficulties. Again it may be added that there is no bold coast-line at Edge Combe, no precipitous granite rocks, with white breakers foaming at their base, no mysterious chasms or sea-caves,—all is gentle and smiling. The cliffs are white chalk, riddled with gulls' nests, or warm red-brown crumbling sand-stone. The blackberries ripen at their sunny summits, the park-like trees curve over almost to the water's brim; and the only danger attaching to these cliffs is their habit of now and again quietly subsiding, breaking away and falling into the sea without the slightest warning.

Allonby had chosen his painting-ground with rare felicity, and had, as was his wont, gently congratulated himself on the pleasing fact. Elaine longed, with a longing which was quite a novel emotion, to be near enough to see what he was doing.

He was not painting, at this moment, but sitting idly, leaning his head on his hand.

Oh, if he would but turn round and look at her! The usually dull grey eyes gathered a strange intensity; even Jane, as she looked at the girl, noticed her odd expression, and was rendered vaguely uneasy by it.

"Come on, miss," said she.

"Oh, but, Jane—he is painting—see! He looks like a gentleman. I wonder who he is!"

"I heard Hutchins say there was a gentleman staying at the Fountain Head. That might be him," said Jane.

"I daresay. Most likely. I wonder what his name is?"

"I don't see it matters to you, miss. You don't know him, nor your aunts don't know him, and if we loiter like this we'll not get home afore the dumpsie" (twilight).

Elaine reluctantly tore away her feet, which seemed rooted to that charmed spot. Her thoughts were not coherent—they were hardly thoughts at all, but there was a sudden passionate wish that she were a man, and free. It was no good to grow up if you were only a girl. She was nineteen, and had no more liberty than when she was nine. Oh, to be able to travel about alone, to stay at an inn, to go from one part of England to another, with no one to ask the why and wherefore of your actions! She looked almost with hatred at Jane's homely, well-known features. Why must she always have a Jane at her elbow?

The evil hour to which Miss Ellen looked forward with mournful prophecy was hard at hand.

"Well, now, I dû say that it's nice to see you, Miss Ullin," said Mrs. Battishill, with delight. "And Jane tû! Come along in out of the heat—come into the rhûme. Is all the ladies well? How dû they like this weatherr, and how dû like it yourself, Miss Ullin, my dearr?"

The Devonshire dialect was one of Allonby's keenest sources of delight, particularly the soft liquid French sound of the u, contrasting with the rough burr of the r. On Elaine it produced absolutely no effect whatever; she had heard it all her life. Her idea of bliss would be to hear something completely different. She went mechanically into Mrs. Battishill's best parlor, neat and clean as a new pin, but with the strange stuffiness which comes of never opening the windows.

She ate the cakes provided, and drank the milk with healthy girlish appetite; but her thoughts were centred on the artist in the lane, and she did not hear a word that Jane and the farmer's wife were saying.

Jane was admiring a large fine silver cup gained by Mr. Battishill at the last agricultural show for the best cultivated farm of more than a hundred acres. This prize was offered every year to his tenantry by Sir Matthew Scone, who owned nearly all the surrounding country.

"Yes, it's a fine coop," said Mrs. Battishill, with pride. "I shown it yesterrday to a young fellow who's making a picturre out there in the lane, and coom oop to the farrm for a drink o' milk."

These words suddenly fixed Elaine's attention.

"He's painting out there now," said Jane, with interest; "we see him as we came threw the waste."

"I dessay you will have," returned Mrs. Battishill, benevolently. "I showed him all over the hoose, and he was that taken oop with it. He said he never see such a queer place in his life. He didn't seem half a bad chap, to me," she was kind enough to add.

Poole Farm had never before presented itself to Elaine in such a pleasant light. It was most certainly a very queer house, for it was built right against the side of a hill, so that you could walk in at the front door, ascend two or three flights of stairs, and then walk out of a door at the back, and find yourself unexpectedly on terra firma. It had never occurred, to the girl till to-day that this eccentricity was