The making of a woman

by Amy Le Feuvre

"I am not so certain," she said. "I fancy Jean does not care for him in the way you think. She is the kind of girl that will expect a good deal from the man she sets her affections upon. I do not think that this Mr. Oxton will come up to her standard."

"Now, Barbara, how can you possibly tell? That is ill-natured to Mr. Oxton, who seems a very good sort of man."

Charlie Oxton certainly spent a good deal of his time at Kingsford Farm. When haymaking began, he went into the fields with Michael, and was as hardworking as any. He made himself at home with an ease and frank unconventionality that astonished Jean. He ran errands for Barbara, chaffed and sparred with Chris; and took Jean under his special care and protection with such a brotherly, or perhaps fatherly, solicitude, that she was more amused than touched by it.

"It's no good, my dear child," he said one morning when he had crept up to the panelled room and had stood unperceived behind her chair for some minutes watching her paint. "You have taken a subject beyond you. The perspective of that elaborate ceiling is wrong, and if you succeeded in depicting this apartment as it is, what an empty picture!"

"It is meant to be empty," said Jean, laughing away her annoyance; "it is an empty interior. What is the matter with my perspective? I have sketched and re-sketched it, till I am quite dizzy."

"As I look at it now," said Charlie, squinting fiercely at her canvas as he spoke, "your point of sight—your vanishing point say—is too low!"

"Of course it is, you goose!" said Jean impatiently, "because you are standing up and I am sitting down. You only do it to tease. I don't believe my perspective is wrong. I have tested it every way."

"Interiors are out of date," went on Charlie, unabashed. "What the public wants are pretty girls to look at, or angelic children, or sporting men. They won't thank you for a panelled room with no one in it. Now if you put me in it, there would be some sense in it. I will pose as a rowdy Cavalier, if you like, or a prim Puritan, or a love-sick swain. I will dangle one leg out of that window over there, and kiss my hand to some damsel below, or I will stand in the middle of the room with a drawn sword and knitted brow, with my teeth clenched, and my eyes in rolling despair, waiting for my pursuers to burst in the door. See what subjects I am giving you! With me as a centre-piece, your picture is sure to be a success. I would grace the walls of the Academy."

"Oh, go away!" said Jean. "You know I am not intending this picture to be a success. It is a test of skill: I am trying to improve myself in my drawing."

"Well," persisted Charlie, "will you undertake my portrait? You say you are going in for portrait painting. Will you paint me? I will come up here and give you two hours' sitting a day. I will not speak a word. The portrait must be full face. I will give it to our uncle as a birthday present, and when he has admired it, and thanked me for it, and hung it up in his hall, I shall tell him it was painted by you. Can you see and hear him when he is enlightened? When shall the first sitting be? To-morrow?"