"But any one can draw a straight line," said Bella, scornfully, "and I don't think they are very pretty."
"Don't you?" he answered; "the horizon is pretty, don't you think? And the horizon is a straight line."
"Yes, it is," said Gardiner, "the howizon is where the street cars fall over into the sunset."
"Gardiner's only six," said Bella, apologetically, "you mustn't expect much of him, Cousin Antony."
She curled over the table and bent her head and broke her pencils one by one, and Fairfax guided Gardiner's hand and watched the little girl. She was lightly and finely made. From under her short red skirt the pretty leg in its woollen stocking swung to and fro. There was a hole in the stocking heel, visible above the tiny, tiny slipper. Through the crude dark collar of the gingham apron came her dark head and its wild torrent of curling hair, wonderful hair, tangled and unkempt, curling roundly at the ends, and beneath the locks the curve of her cheek was like ivory. She was a Southern beauty—her little red mouth twisted awry over her drawing.
"I thought dwawing was making pictures, Cousin Antony; if I'd have known it was lines, I wouldn't have taken," said his youngest cousin.
"You have to begin with those things, old man. I'll wipe your hands off on my handkerchief."
"Please do," said the little boy; "my hands leak awful easy."
His sister laughed softly, and said to herself in an undertone—
"I've drawn my lines long—long—ago, and now I'm making...."