"That's a tremendous compliment," said Jean smiling. "You mustn't make me too vain, Rawlings!"
"Eh, I hopes not, but ye always did say ye would do big things, Miss Jean. But now ye have climbed so high maybe ye'll be satisfied an' come back to us!"
"I've burnt my boats; I can't return," said Jean, and her smile faded away.
"This here town be a terrible place for a country-bred maid," went on Rawlings with a backward throw of his thumb to the gaily dressed throng behind them. "Why, where do all the folks come from? 'Scurshions up to London and back, I reckon. But I never seed nor heard such a stock! Their trailin' gowns a-switchin' round, the feathers, as big as a barn fowl's whole body, on their heads, their jool'ry an' chains a-rattlin' an' swayin' in the air, an' their sham flowers, an' their sham scents, an' worse than all, their bare necks showin' thro' ragged muslin! Why bless my soul, 'tis enough to scandalise a respectable person!"
"Now, Rawlings, look here, keep your eyes off the young women. I brought you up here to see the pictures; don't you be turning yourself into a critic of town beauties!"
Charlie's face looked very grave. Rawlings hitched up his shoulders, and taking out a red cotton handkerchief, mopped his forehead.
"The pictur's be worse than the females lookin' at them," he sighed. "I've had to turn my head in confusion four times in this very room! Miss Jean, the master be right. Artists an' sich like be a bad lot, they're no better than they should be, I be very much afraid. Your pictur' be very nice, but it be in bad company, an' I mind my copy-books at school, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"
"Now, Rawlings, leave the poor pictures alone, and tell me of your garden, and of Mary and John and Elsie."
"Elsie have left us, Miss Jean. She actooly at her time o' life took a husban', an' he a common porter on the line! An' the house be not changed for the better, for the young maids won't work, neither will they stay, an' Mary gets pretty distracted. John be in poor health, he's goin' the way o' most, rheumatics an' lumbago an' such like, an' when he be better, I be worse, an' so we ups an' downs like a see-saw!"
"You must come home, and have some tea with me," said Jean. "I invite both of you."