CONVERSATION XIII.
SKETCHING.
Lucy asked Miss Anne if she would let her go with her the next time that she went out to make sketches, and let her try to see if she could not make sketches too, with her new pencil. Miss Anne had two or three pencils, which she kept in a little morocco case, and some small sheets of drawing paper in a portfolio. Sometimes, when she went out to walk, she used to take these drawing implements and materials with her, and sit down upon a bank, or upon a rock, and draw, while Lucy was playing around.
But now, as Lucy herself had a pencil, she wanted to carry it out, so that she could make sketches too.
Miss Anne said that she should like this plan very much; and accordingly, one pleasant summer afternoon, they set off. Miss Anne tied Lucy’s pencil and India rubber together, by a strong silk thread, so that the India rubber might not be so easily lost. The other necessary materials—namely, some paper, some pencils for Miss Anne, and two thin books with stiff covers, to lay their paper upon, while drawing—were all properly provided, and put in a bag, which Miss Anne had made, and which she always used for this purpose.
Lucy observed, also, that Miss Anne put something else in her bag. Lucy thought, from its appearance, that it was a square block; but it was folded up in a paper, and so she could not see. She asked Miss Anne what it was, and Miss Anne told her it was a secret.
They walked along without any particular adventure until they came to a bridge across a stream. It was the same stream where they had sat upon the rocks and seen George and the other boys fishing; but this was a different part of the stream, and the water was deep and still. Lucy and Miss Anne stopped upon the middle of the bridge, and looked over the railing down to the dark water far below.
“O, what deep water!” said Lucy.
“How could we get over this river if it were not for this bridge?”
“Not very conveniently,” said Miss Anne.