The sitter was little Anne, costumed as the artist had planned, in a soft green silken gown that fell to her ankles. It was touched with dull gold to relieve it, and it had a white yoke, and a narrow white band around the slender throat. Her dark hair fell straight against her cheeks, and her hands, lying on her knees, held a rare old tooled leather “Book of Hours.” A dark carved chair of mediæval Italian design was her throne, and her little feet rested on a carved footstool. Her eyes were shining, for, to call into her face the expression that he wanted to paint, Ted Wilberforce had talked to her of poetry and of heavenly things.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Miss Carrington, stopping short.
She knew a great deal about pictures, and she saw that the picture before her was wonderfully beautiful, from both an artistic and a literary point of view.
“Don’t let me interrupt, I beg,” she said, delight shining in her eyes. “When I lived in Paris I knew many of the artists and rejoiced in seeing pictures grow. But this one! Wilberforce or Carpaccio? And what do you call it?”
“‛The Mystic,’ Miss Carrington,” said Wilberforce, resuming the brush that he had laid down.
The picture was well on toward completion; the artist worked rapidly, with swift, sure instinct and obedient strokes.
“Exactly!” Miss Carrington’s approval of the name was manifest. “Little Anne, you are a fortunate child, yet I think you help the artist.”
“Mr. Wilberforce has been telling me stories about Fra Angelico, and how he prayed and prayed to be fit to paint Our Lord and his Blessed Mother. And he told me about Fra Bartolomeo and how he went to the monastery where they attacked Sav-on-a-ro-la.” Little Anne pronounced the long name carefully. “And it has been most good for me. ‛Fra’ means ‛brother,’ Miss Carrington. I’m afraid you don’t know about monks, but I do. Sisters are the same, only ladies, and I go to their school. I told Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Latham lots of stories, too; all about St. Francis and the animals. He called them ‛Brother Wolf’ and ‛Sister Bird,’ and he loved them dearly! I don’t know what he’d ever have done if he’d seen Kitca! Or Cricket! Do you think when they look down, saints can see animals? Don’t you think they must, because they see me, and I’m always forever hugging Cricket and Kitca?”
Little Anne leaned forward eagerly, but instantly remembered and resumed her pose. Her eyes were filled with the vision that her own question called up, and Ted worked rapidly on the eyes in his picture.
“My dear little Anne, it seems to me quite as probable——” Miss Carrington checked herself. How could she insinuate her cavilling doubt to this child?