"If it won't interfere with your home lessons and practising. It's extremely kind of her to ask you, I'm sure."
"I'll just swat at my lessons when I get back, to make up, and I'll do my practising before breakfast."
"Very well, but don't stay later than half-past five. The evenings are beginning to get dark so soon now."
"Oh, thanks most immensely!"
To Lorraine, brought up in a little world consisting mostly of her own family and a circle of cousins, it was really quite an event to pay this visit into the terra incognita of the Art Colony. She came to school in her best dress that afternoon, with the chain of amber beads that Donald had sent her from Italy. They were at present the only artistic things she possessed, and therefore the most suitable for the occasion.
She and Claudia hurried away as speedily as possible after four o'clock, and were soon tramping down the hill from The Gables and treading the narrow, quaint streets that led towards the sea. The harbour at Porthkeverne was a picturesque place that had figured over and over again on the walls of the Academy. Its green waters this afternoon sheltered a fleet of red-sailed fishing-boats, whose owners were busy making ready to put out into the bay. Over the beach and round about the breakwater flew hundreds of sea-birds, flapping in and out of the water, and pecking among the sea-weed on the rocks. Some venturesome urchins, scrambling after crabs, screamed almost as lustily as the gulls.
Along the quay, behind the barrels and upturned boats and baskets and old timber, was a row of irregular buildings that had once served as sailmakers' warehouses or boat builders' workshops. The artistic colony had joyfully seized upon these, and had turned them from their original use into a set of studios. Large glass windows fronted the bay, and twisting flights of steps and painted railings led up to the doors on which were brass plates with names well known both in London and provincial exhibitions.
Claudia led the way along the quay, crossing the gangway where the little river flowed down, and passing the "Sailors' Rest" where a few blue-jacketed old salts were reading the newspapers, then stopped at a particular flight of wooden steps that were painted pale sea-green. Up these she ran, and tapped at a half-open door.
"Come in!" said a voice, and the girls entered.
To Lorraine it was like a sudden peep into fairyland. The rough wooden walls of the studio had been covered with a soft brown embossed paper, that served as a background for sketches, framed and unframed, which were hung there. Pieces of tapestry and oriental curtains were draped between, and large blue-and-white willow-pattern plates made a frieze above. A rare walnut cabinet, a Japanese screen, a gate-legged table, some Chippendale chairs, and a carved oak cupboard composed the furniture of the room; and there were scattered about a large number of artistic "properties"—bright scarves, shells, beads, pottery, vases, pewter, and standing on the floor a huge brass jar filled with branches of flaming autumn leaves.