“You said, ‘How happy we were, that summer we went sketching!’ or words to that effect. It’s just like a man’s writing about the careless happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to, the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o’clock, and having a lie on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought, and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one of your sketches.”
“I got into the ‘Household Album’ with mine, however,” said Jack; “and I defy an A.R.A. to have had more difficulty in securing his position.”
“I’m afraid your appearance in the Phycological Quarterly was better deserved,” said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eye from the microscope she was using at a table just opposite to Clem’s.
But this demands explanation, and I must go back to the time of which Jack and I spoke—when we used to go sketching together.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE “HOUSEHOLD ALBUM”—SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES—A NEW SPECIES?—JACK’S BARGAIN—THEORIES.
Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a scrapbook, or “Household Album,” as it was called, into which she pasted such of her children’s original drawings as were held good enough for the honour; the age of the artist being taken into account.
Jack’s gift in this line was not as great as that of Clement or Eleanor, but this was not the only reason why no drawing of his appeared in the scrapbook. Mrs. Arkwright demanded more evidence of pains and industry than Jack was wont to bestow on his sketches or designs. He resented his exclusion, and made many efforts to induce his mother to accept his hasty productions; but it was not till the summer to which I alluded that Jack took his place in the “Household Album.”