“I should so like to make a large drawing of this in chalks!” said Alice, still gazing on the miniature.
“You draw so beautifully in chalks! Your style is not often found here—your colouring is so fine.”
“Do you really think so?”
“You must know it, Miss Arden. You are too good an artist not to suspect what everyone else must see, the real excellence of your drawings. Your colouring is better understood in France. Your master, I fancy, was a Frenchman?” said Mr. Longcluse.
“Yes, he was, and we got on very well together. Some of his young lady pupils were very much afraid of him.”
“Your poetry is fired by that picture, Miss Arden. Your copy will be a finer thing than the original,” said he.
“I shall aim only at making it a faithful copy; and if I can accomplish anything like that, I shall be only too glad.”
“I hope you will allow me to see it?” pleaded Longcluse.
“Oh, certainly,” she laughed. “Only I'm a little afraid of you, Mr. Longcluse.”
“What can you mean, Miss Arden?”