"Why, Tom?"
"I'm too busy."
"I wish you would go, Tom. I wish you could see his pictures. Why, Tom, you'd feel like taking the shoes off your feet."
Tom laughed grimly.
"Not while the weather's so cold," he said.
"But, Tom, that's the reason for Mr. Alton. He is getting our woods and skies and river safe on his canvases. He's going to take them back to people who have never seen such things."
"Why don't they come and board here, then, and see them for themselves?" Tom threw a log viciously on the fire. "You don't mean he's doing this to give a lot of people pleasure?"
"Tom, he sells his pictures; he gets a great deal of money for them."
"Umph!" Then, "Has he ever put you in the pictures, Donelle?"
There was a slight pause. Remembering the faint suggestion in the first picture she had ever seen in the cabin, Donelle said softly: