"You are only a boy, my great son, but I think you know perfectly well what you will want when you are ready to take it, and though you are so young I should be delighted if beautiful Prudence cared enough for you to wait for you. It would not necessarily be long; you have as much to start upon as Basil has," said this comrade-father, wise in reading the set of tides and winds. "But, my son, though Prue is fond of you in her frank sisterly manner of established custom, it is Arthur Stanhope whom she will marry, and not my boy, who must find his consolation in the galleries of Europe as many another disappointed artist has found it before him."
"Not without a try at a better fate, father," said Bartlemy with a certain compression of the lip that meant determination.
Prue, bending forward that day, under the glorious trees, amid the waving grass, and holding out the daisies to wriggling Bob and Ted, felt the determination and preoccupation of the painter's mind, and dreaded a scene that would be painful to them both. So she chatted on in a ceaseless flood of varying topics, wondering if this really could be only Bartlemy with whom she felt so ill at ease.
"See here, boys, I'm going to chloroform you the next time," cried Bartlemy at last. "How do you think I can paint a perpetual motion—let alone two motions? Oh, say, Betty, now don't jump out of the picture like that, not even if you do want to reach that tassel grass!"
"Betty, Betty, try to be quiet!" begged Prue. "Poor Bartlemy! he can't paint, and you will have spoiled our beautiful picture!"
"It's so hot!" sighed Betty.
"Yes, and what do we care for pictures? You can get better ones'n this'll be at the grocer's, swapping for soap wrappers," grumbled Bobby.
"'N Doris wants to finish Tobias' collar, though she's too polite to say so," added Ted.
"Doris is a comfort, a model model," said Bartlemy. "We might as well let the kiddies off, Prue; they've stood it as long as they can, and the rest of the time they would be no good. I've got what I wanted most to-day, and can work it up without models for a day or two."
The children had scattered at the first suggestion of dismissal, all but Doris, who paused to pick up some tubes and a brush which Bartlemy had dropped before walking sedately away to resume the collar which she was making for old Tobias, who found his declining years sunshine-flooded by the coming of this little maid.