“I think this will amuse you, Mrs. Aviolet,” tittered the governess.
She handed to Rose the paper, that bore a strange, pencilled outline, resembling a depressed fox rather than anything else, with the words, “This is Puge,” printed underneath in Cecil’s straggling round-hand.
“That is Cecil’s idea of poor Pug,” Miss Wade remarked, in a tone that exploited the comical inadequacy of the conception. “I tell him that he must learn the rules of drawing before he tries anything quite so ambitious as a portrait again.”
Rose gazed at the drawing. It was very poor, indeed, even for eight years old, but she experienced no particular amusement at the sight of it.
“Cecil’s like me—can’t draw a straight line,” she said. “Come here, lovey.”
She had felt dimly afraid that Cecil was resentful of Miss Wade’s tactless ridicule, but she was not prepared for the furious little face that he turned upon her.
“You’re not to look at my drawing—Miss Wade isn’t to look at my drawing!” he cried angrily. “I didn’t say she might look at it!”
The little boy made an ineffectual dash at the paper held above his grasp by the governess.
“Cecil! That’s not at all the way to speak. Just because you can’t stand a little chaff.”
“Don’t, Ces—stop that!” Rose caught hold of him.