"Of course you may!" said the lady, genially. Hands behind his back, Peter stared at the canvas. Then he stepped back yet farther, lifted one hand, and squinted through the fingers. The young lady regarded him with growing interest.
"Well, what do you think of it?" she asked.
The young woman wasn't a quick worker, but she was a careful one, and very exact. Unfinished though it was, the picture showed that; and it showed, too, a lack of something vital; there was no spontaneity in it.
"I've never seen anybody paint before, though I've always wanted to," said Peter, and fetched an unconscious sigh of envy.
"You haven't said whether or not you like it," the girl reminded him.
"It isn't finished," said Peter. His eyes went to the familiar woods, the beloved woods, and came back to her canvas. "I think when it's finished it will be like a photograph," he added.
Claribel Spring—for that was the big girl's name—knew her own limitations; but to meet a criticism so exact and so just, from a barefooted child in the South Carolina wilds wasn't to be expected. She took a longer look at the boy and thought she had never before seen a pair of eyes so absolutely, clearly golden. Those eyes would create a distinct impression upon people: either you'd like them, or you'd find them so strange you'd think them ugly. She herself thought them beautiful.
"You seem to know something about pictures, even unfinished ones," she told him comradely. "And may I ask who you are, and why and how you come flying out of the nowhere into the here of these forsaken woods?"
"Oh, I'm only Peter Champneys," said the boy with the golden eyes, shyly. "I hope I didn't startle you? It's my butterfly's fault. You see, I never know where I've got to follow him, or what I'm going to find when I get there."
"Your butterfly? You mean that Red Admiral that just whizzed by? He skimmed over my easel," said the young lady.