"It's splendid," said Pamela aloud, gazing at the picture with admiration. "Do you know"—she turned impulsively to Elizabeth, who was standing behind her—"it makes me feel as if I want to go home, and tear up all my drawings and start afresh. Your pictures are so—so alive. If only I could get that living touch into my work. But I feel I'll never be able to do it—when I think of my own things—and then look at this."
"I am more than double your age," said Elizabeth Bagg steadily, though her heart was beating rapidly at these, the first words of genuine praise and encouragement that she had had for a long time. "I have been working for many years past."
"That's not it," said Pamela, shaking her head. "There's something in your pictures, that if you had not got it in you, no amount of practice would produce. I can't explain any better than that—but you know what I mean, don't you? I think your work's fine.... Have you ever exhibited any of your pictures anywhere?"
Elizabeth Bagg shook her head.
"No," she replied, and a tinge of colour crept into her cheeks again.
"Oh, but you should," said Pamela, enthusiastically, looking at a charming study of a little girl in a red tam-o'-shanter.
Pamela's enthusiasm affected Elizabeth Bagg strangely. She felt suddenly much younger than she had felt for years past. It was so long since anyone had noticed her pictures. Her days were spent in household duties for her brother and the children (just as Martha had told Pamela), with every spare half hour snatched for her painting. Some days, when she knew there would be no half hour to spare, Elizabeth would get up very early in the morning to continue a picture, and would feel all the fresher to face the work afterward, knowing that her picture was progressing, surely if slowly. Twice a week she gave painting lessons at a 'School for the Daughters of Gentlemen' in Inchmoor, a practice at which her brother had ceased to grumble when he found it brought her in a few shillings a week. He considered her 'daubing' a fearful waste of time; she had far better be employed in making a tasty apple-pie or mending the children's stockings, he thought—work for which Elizabeth received her 'board and lodging.' Old Tom Bagg flattered himself that he was good-naturedly indulgent to Elizabeth's little hobby, nevertheless Pamela noticed that there were no pictures of Elizabeth's anywhere about the house—they were all packed away in her own room.
Pamela did not know of the gratitude Elizabeth felt toward her; she only knew that she admired Elizabeth's pictures immensely, and felt a keen interest in the painter of them.
As Elizabeth said she would like very much to see some of Pamela's work, Pamela arranged to bring some round the following day.
And so the friendship began.