“Will you look at this now?”
He examined the drawing closely.
“Where did you learn?” he inquired.
“My mother. She was educated to her finger tips. She drew, painted, played beautifully, sang well, and she had read almost all the best books. Besides what I learned at high school she taught me all I know. Her embroidery always brought higher prices than mine, try as I might. I never saw any one else make such a dainty, accurate little stitch as she could.”
“If this is not perfect, I don't know how to criticise it. I can and will use it in my work. But I have one luna cocoon remaining and I would give ten dollars for such a drawing of the moth before it flies. It may open to-night or not for several days. If your aunt should be worse and you cannot come to-morrow and the moth emerges, is there any way in which I could send it to you?”
“What could I do with it?”
“I thought perhaps you could take a piece of paper and the pencils with you, and secure an outline in your room. It need not be worked up with all the detail in this. Merely a skeleton sketch would do. Could I leave it at the house or send it with some one?”
“No! Oh no!” she cried. “Leave it here. Put it in a box in the bushes where I hid the books. What are you going to do with these things?”
“Hide them in the thicket and scatter leaves over them.”
“What if it rains?”