Flowery June had given place to blazing July. The pink roses were fading on the cottage fronts, and the laburnums had long been over. Tall white lilies still bloomed in the village gardens, and geraniums were beginning to show their scarlet glory. The fresh green of early summer had yielded to darker tones, the trees were thick masses of foliage, the hedges a tangle of traveller's joy. If the landscape lacked the inspiration of spring, it was nevertheless full of rich beauty, especially to eyes trained to appreciate the picturesque. Miss Aubrey's sketching class was at present quite a large one, for it had been augmented by the addition of Viola, Dorrie, and Diana. Now that their matriculation examination was over, they no longer needed private coaching, and Mrs. Franklin transferred their spare hours to her sister. The three monitresses were glad of the change; after the hard brainwork and the very close application that had been required from them, they turned to painting with the greatest relief. Every afternoon a procession of enthusiastic students, bearing camp-stools and easels, wended its way from Aireyholme. At first Miss Aubrey had led her artistic flock to the village, but with July days came a change of plans. The Council school broke up for six weeks, and Heathwell was suddenly over-run with children. Although according to statistics the population of England might be on the decrease, here it certainly showed no signs of dwindling. Small people were everywhere, as the amateur artists found to their cost. No doubt it was most unreasonable of the Aireyholme girls, who liked their own August vacation, to object to other schools having holidays, but they did not appreciate a crowd of spectators, and grumbled exceedingly.
"Good-bye to the last remnants of peace and quiet!" said Dorrie. "We're simply haunted by these wretched infants. They seem to think us fair game. I had the whole of the Gartley family, including the baby, sitting round my feet to-day."
"I like children singly or in pairs, or even up to half a dozen," protested Diana, "but when it comes to having them wholesale like this, I feel as if I were minding a crèche. Oh, what a nuisance they are!"
"It all comes of being too attractive, as the old lady said when she was struck by lightning!" laughed Gwethyn.
The class was sketching the street and the market hall. Some of the girls were making very good attempts at the subject, and Miss Aubrey was most anxious for them to finish their paintings, so for two more afternoons they braved their fatal popularity. It was impossible to escape the too friendly juveniles. Scouts were generally waiting to convey the news of their arrival, and they would walk down the village followed by a long comet's tail of small fry, who would encamp close to them on the market-hall steps, bringing babies, puppies, or kittens, eating bread and treacle, munching green apples, and singing deafening school songs in chorus. It was not the slightest use to tell the youngsters to go away; they would only retreat to a distance of about ten yards, and then edge gradually nearer again.
"I've tried to look cross and savage," said Gladwin Riley, "but they only grin."
"I've been trying to civilize them," sighed Nan Bethell. "I suggested to one youth that it would be an improvement for him to wash his particularly grimy little fingers. He looked at me, and then at his hands for a moment or two—apparently it takes some time for the agricultural brain to turn over a new idea—then he remarked briefly: 'I likes 'em dirty!' and transferred them to his pockets. Any further arguments on my poor part would, I felt, be superfluous."
Though the girls laughed over the humour of their experiences, they really found the children very trying, and both teacher and pupils were thankful when the sketches of the market hall were successfully finished. One final incident seemed the coping-stone of their annoyances. A child, even more eager than the rest to press near, was jostled by the others off the raised pathway where she was standing, and fell with a crash on to the road, almost upsetting Katrine's easel, and smashing a bottle of vinegar which she had been holding clasped in her arms. A woman, who proved to be the delinquent's mother, came out from a cottage, and after first administering a vigorous smack to her offspring, offered hot water wherewith to sponge the damaged clothing.
"She was really very kind," said Katrine afterwards, "but I could see that she was all the time regretting such a waste of good vinegar, more than sympathizing with me for absorbing it. I don't believe this skirt will ever be fit to wear again. I know I shall feel like a pickled herring if I put it on!"
It was not at all an easy matter for Miss Aubrey to choose a suitable subject for a large class. The girls were at different stages of ability, and the beginners must not be sacrificed to the cleverer few. While Katrine, Gladwin, and perhaps Diana could manage a sketch of trees, hayfield, or reedy river, the others demanded something more palpable in the way of drawing. A cottage, where you could reproduce the lines of roof, door, windows, and chimney, was far easier than a misty impression of sky and foliage. But where there were cottages there were nearly always children to stand and stare, so again Miss Aubrey found herself in a difficulty. She solved it by taking her class to sketch a picturesque, tumble-down little farm, about a mile and a half away from Heathwell, where, for a marvel, not even a solitary specimen of childhood resided.