"For COUSIN JEAN,
From an acquaintance!"
And after this vegetables, fruit, and flowers followed at intervals.
Jean was studying again hard. Miss Lorraine went away to visit her mother and left her alone for a time, but when the summer came on, and Jean became pale and languid with the heat, Miss Lorraine begged her to take a rest.
"I don't know where to go," she said. "I am getting unsociable, I fancy. Two girls I work with, want me to go with them to Brittany, but they are rather go ahead, and I am old-fashioned. After my Paris experiences, I fight shy of art students. I could go down and do some painting in a farmhouse. I want to study some interiors, if I can, but I don't know where to go."
"We will make some inquiries. I wish you and I could go off together somewhere, but I have promised to keep house for a friend while she is away for a much-needed change."
Very shortly afterwards, Miss Lorraine came to Jean.
"My dear, I think I have heard of the very thing for you. It is an old farm down in Devonshire, and was originally a manor house. It has a beautiful oak-panelled room in it, and the whole of it is most picturesque, I am told. Part of it is in a very tumbled-down condition. Two daughters of a clergyman I used to know live in it. They got it cheap, and they are anxious for lodgers or paying guests in the summer time. What do you think of it?"
"Have you any photo of it?" asked Jean. "You know I do not care for strangers much, and I would rather lodge with quite common people. I should be far more independent. Perhaps I would not be allowed to paint in peace."
"I am quite certain you would be perfectly independent there; they are a Scotch family, well connected, but very poor."
"Scotch, are they?"