She chattered away as she broke off the twigs, finally saying, “There, I think that is enough. I am much obliged to you, Mrs. Pussywillow, for letting me take some of your pretty buds. I will come to see you again some day.” Then she climbed up the slope stretching down to the brook, looking from time to time with much satisfaction at the little gray fuzzy buds.
When she reached the top of the hill she paused for a moment that she might determine upon the best way, and then started to cross the field diagonally. Just before she reached the corner of the fence she stopped short, surprised to see before her a young man sitting on a camp-stool with a black box in his lap. Elizabeth was curious to know what he could be doing, and began to move slowly nearer to him until she came within his line of vision.
The young man looked over the top of his box at her. “Good-evening, Aurora,” he said.
Supposing that he mistook her for someone else, Elizabeth made reply: “My name isn’t Aurora.”
“It isn’t? I should have thought it was. Then you are a woodland elf and live down in those woods that you have just come from. It was just a case of mistaken identity; that was all. Good-evening, Elfie.”
Elizabeth smiled. This was certainly a very unusual young man. Some persons might have said he was crazy, but Elizabeth recognized a kindred spirit. “Good-evening,” she said, encouraged to draw a little nearer that she might see what he was really doing.
But before she reached him the young man arose, set his box on the stool and stood off at a few paces, squinting at it with half-closed eyes. Then he made a sudden dash forward, made a dab at the lid of the box and returned to the place he had been standing. “Come here,” he said, “and tell me what you think of it.”
Elizabeth obeyed the invitation with alacrity and saw that the young man held a palette and brushes and that in the top of his box was fastened a small canvas upon which he had been working. All these things were quite new to Elizabeth. She was familiar with her sister’s box of water-colors, but this paraphernalia was strange. She reached the young man’s side and looked at the canvas with pleased eyes. “Why, it is a picture,” she said.
“You don’t say so,” returned the young man. “Is it really?”
“What else could it be?” said Elizabeth, a little puzzled.