Barbara spared her as much as possible. She felt sincerely grateful to her, and would have lightened her labour, if she could.

"It all seems such an easy, happy life to you and Chris, until one comes to do it," said Jean, one afternoon as she was helping Barbara to iron some linen in the kitchen. "Don't you get sick of it all, and long to have some one to do all the drudgery for you? It seems a waste of life for educated and cultured people to be filling their time with such menial work."

"I don't think it is waste of life," Barbara said, thoughtfully. "Very often the people living in ease and luxury are wasting their lives, as you call it. You see us now in our busiest time, but in the long winter evenings, we have time for reading and improving our minds. I have a horror of sinking to the level of the rustic labourer, who, when his work is done, sits and dozes in his kitchen or the inn parlour, and lets his brain become less and less active as the years roll by. Mick reads to us while we work. Sometimes I have a game of chess with him, and he brings home many a good and interesting book from the free library in the town. Our vicar is very good in lending us magazines. He comes in and has a chat with us occasionally. Do you think we are apathetic and sluggish in our conversation and tastes?"

"No—oh no—far from it!" exclaimed Jean hastily. "I think you are all wonderful, and I have no business to criticise you. I only thought that if I were always to live the kind of life that you do, I should give up everything else. It would be too much trouble."

"You are unaccustomed to such work as ours," said Barbara. "You would get used to it, after a time. It is what many an English girl does in the Colonies."

"Yes," said Jean, "but some of them sink under it. It is a case of the survival of the fittest out there."

Chris's first letter to Jean was an intensely interesting one to her, and she read and re-read it with increasing pleasure:—

"MY DEAR JEAN,—What a trump you are! When I lie in bed here sipping my early cup of tea, and think of the delicious restful day in front of me, I know that you are up and about, roughening those artistic fingers, and burning your pretty face over the kitchen fire, tramping through the yard after the chicks, chasing the pigs away from the dairy, and sweeping and dusting, laying the breakfast and taking it away—oh! I must stop, but I can see it all in my mind's eye, and quite expect to receive a telegram soon: 'Can stand it no longer. Come back at once.'"
"Well, I have written to Barbara and given her an account of my journey. I know you will be more interested in my godmother. She was in the drawing-room when I arrived, and greeted me quite affectionately. What a handsome, old lady she is! We had a quiet, little chat together. She showed me a miniature of my grandmother, whom she knew intimately. Then, she took me to my bedroom. I felt like Cinderella in the palace! Such a luxurious room, with every comfort—a sofa, and a bookcase, and a writing-table, lovely pictures and dainty chintzes! I felt I could spend the whole of my days in it."
"I was left to dress for dinner. There were some cream roses on my dressing table, and her maid, who came in and embarrassed me by insisting upon unpacking my things and helping me to dress, suggested my wearing them. I was so thankful they were not pink in colour, as I know she would have made me put them on. I should have been too frightened to refuse, and the combination of those and my red hair would have put a finishing touch to my ugly face! Well, I got into my black silk and rustled downstairs with my head well up, and wrapped my shyness over with an easy assurance of manner that I hoped would carry me through. Dr. Fergusson was in the drawing-room when I went in. I like him, Jean. He has the keen sense of humour I love to see in a man, and a sense of repressed force of character—how can I describe it? When he forgets himself and talks with earnestness and animation, you realise he is a strong and clever man, but you also realise that there is a good deal more of him to know than he lets you know. He and his mother had a delightful discussion on the present generation versus the past."
"'Of course,' said Mrs. Fergusson, 'every one is staunch to their own generation. I think my own girlhood was a much happier and more wholesome one, than the girls of the present day. But my mother thought her girlhood was preferable to mine. Mrs. Kitty McTaggart, Christobel's grandmother, said once to me: "'Bel, my dear, I don't mind growing old, I don't mind grey hairs and wrinkles, but I do mind these empty, scatter-brained lassies scoffing and jeering at the days of our childhood. It is the sweetest memory to me, and the only comfort to me, is that the wheel of time will bring these lassies to my stage, and they, in their turn, will have their past held up to ridicule by their grandchildren!"'"
"'I should like to have known that grandmother of mine!' I could not help saying."
"'You are very like her, child,' my godmother said, and I could only stare at her, for the miniature she showed me was such a sweet one."
"I mentioned your name, Jean. Mrs. Fergusson remembered you quite well, after a minute's thought. Dr. Fergusson asked whether you were doing any more portraits. I told him how it was you came to us, and then he asked his mother, if she had seen Sunnie's picture. She said no, but that if I liked, she would take me to see it. 'I hear,' she said, 'Mrs. Gordon is going to allow it to appear in the Academy, if it is approved of. I would not care to have a child of mine brought before the public in such a manner.'"
"'I suppose Helen belongs to the present generation,' said Dr. Fergusson, quizzically."
"We went into the drawing-room after dinner, Mrs. Fergusson and I. The doctor was called out. I found myself telling her everything. I felt it would be more honest. And when I told her how you were doing my work, so that I could come, she said thoughtfully—
"'That is good to hear. I remember I thought she had capabilities of other kinds besides art. She was undeveloped, when I saw her.'"
"I heard that Miss Worth had gone back to London. I am afraid I must stop now, but I will write again soon."
"Your affectionate and grateful"
"CHRIS."
"Dr. Fergusson came in before I went to bed, and said to me in a half-joking fashion—"
"'You mustn't let my mother rob you of your roses. You have been accustomed to keep early hours, I can see, so beware of interesting her too much. Time is of no account to her. She considers it a servant, not a master.'"
"Mrs. Fergusson put her hand on his shoulder in such a pretty, graceful fashion."
"'No, laddie,' she said gently, 'I have given up trying to master it; it is like the modern young woman—I can't keep pace with either!'"

[CHAPTER XVI]

A DOCTOR'S VERDICT