"I must not take credit to myself where no credit is due," she
said, her clear, truthful blue eyes looking alternately at Miss
Halcombe and at me. "Fond as I am of drawing, I am so conscious
of my own ignorance that I am more afraid than anxious to begin.
Now I know you are here, Mr. Hartright, I find myself looking over
my sketches, as I used to look over my lessons when I was a little
girl, and when I was sadly afraid that I should turn out not fit
to be heard."
She made the confession very prettily and simply, and, with
quaint, childish earnestness, drew the sketch-book away close to
her own side of the table. Miss Halcombe cut the knot of the
little embarrassment forthwith, in her resolute, downright way.
"Good, bad, or indifferent," she said, "the pupil's sketches must
pass through the fiery ordeal of the master's judgment--and
there's an end of it. Suppose we take them with us in the
carriage, Laura, and let Mr. Hartright see them, for the first
time, under circumstances of perpetual jolting and interruption?
If we can only confuse him all through the drive, between Nature
as it is, when he looks up at the view, and Nature as it is not
when he looks down again at our sketch-books, we shall drive him
into the last desperate refuge of paying us compliments, and shall
slip through his professional fingers with our pet feathers of
vanity all unruffled.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96