They were at the gallery by the turnstile; the ticket collector looked at Dawn rather sternly.
"What do you want here again?" he demanded.
"I'm showing some friends round," Dawn said airily. "Don't mind us. I have dad's card in my pocket, and we shan't stay long."
"Sixpence each, and that's only asking half-price. If you goes in free, a tail o' children after you don't!"
Puggy tossed the man a shilling with the grandest air.
"Take that and let us through without any more of your cheek!" he said.
Dawn's face was crimson with mortification. He felt in his pockets, and then laughed his sunny laugh.
"I'm a penniless Paddy," he said, "or I'd pay it for you; but I'll be even with that fellow yet, for insulting my friends! Come on. Now what would you say if your father had painted pictures like that?"
He led them triumphantly to a small room, and there in the centre were three large pictures. A group of people were before them discussing them, and Dawn on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, crept up to listen.
Christina was feasting her eyes, not her ears. The first picture was a portrait of Dawn, and a very lovely picture he made. He was represented as just waking up in the centre of a great forest, the sun was rising, though not actually in sight. Its pale golden light surrounded by a slight morning mist, edged the horizon between some grand-looking pines. It was a picture that portrayed not only the dawn of youth, but the dawn of day and the dawn of summer. Everything was young and fresh; the baby bracken was softly uncurling, the buds of tree and bush all unfolding; a nest of young birds, a group of tiny rabbits, and a timid frightened fawn peering through the bushes at the waking child were all depicted with power that was akin to genius. The child was the centre of it all, and with his flushed and dimpled face, the disordered curls on his forehead, his sleepy eyes, and his little limbs in the act of stretching themselves, was a life-like sketch.