2
The following day Mrs. Corrie decided that she did not want to keep the hats. She would spend the money intended for them on sketching lessons. An artist should come once a week and teach them all to paint from Nature. This decision excited Miriam deeply, putting everything else out of her mind. It promised the satisfaction of a desire she had cherished with bitter hopelessness ever since her schooldays when every Friday had brought the necessity of choking down her longing to join the little crowd of girls who took “extras” and filed carelessly in to spend a magic afternoon amongst easels and casts in the large room. The old longing came leaping back higher than it had ever done before, making a curious eager smouldering in her chest—as Mrs. Corrie talked. An old sketch-book was brought out and Mrs. Corrie spent the morning making drawings of the heads of the children as they sat at lessons. The book was almost full of drawings of the children’s heads. Besides the heads there were rough sketches of people Miriam did not know. The first half-dozen pages were covered with small outlines, hands, feet, eyes, thumbs; a few lines suggesting a body. These pages seemed full of life. But the sketches of the children and the unknown people, sitting posed, in profile, looking up, looking down, full face, quarter face, three-quarters, depressed her. Learning to draw did not seem worth while if this was the result. The early pages haunted her memory as she sat over the children’s lessons. Feet, strange things stepping out, going through the world, running, dancing; the silent feet of people sitting in chairs pondering affairs of state. Eyes, looking at everything; looking at the astonishingness of everything.