The boy folded the little picture back carefully in its wrappings and replaced it in his pocket.
"Why do you suppose your uncle did that?" asked Mrs. Lowell.
"I don't know."
"Don't you really, Bertie?" she asked, dreading the signs of dullness she perceived altering his face as the brightness died away.
"I guess it was because he said it—it wasted my time. He took everything except this." The boy's hand rested on the pocket that held the treasure. "He didn't find this."
"Took what? Your materials, your sketching things?"
"Everything. He gets very—very angry if I take a pencil. Twice he has whipped me for it."
"But, Bertie, please try to make me understand. Mr. Gayne is an artist himself, he says."
"Yes. He says he—has money enough to live and I haven't. He says I just hang on him. So I must chop wood and—and wash windows, and Cora makes me scrub the floors. He says if he wants to waste time painting he can, but I must not."
Mrs. Lowell regarded the boy closely. "Your uncle showed me some very charming sketches up at the farm this morning."