"It'll be an enchanting book if she illustrates it, Horatio."
"If she illustrates it!"
But when he tried to show Fanny the absurdity of the idea—Horatio Bysshe Waddington illustrated by Barbara Madden—she laughed in his face and told him he was a conceited old thing. To which he replied, with dignified self-restraint, that he was writing a serious and important book. It would be foolish to pretend that it was not serious and important. He hoped he had no overweening opinion of its merits, but one must preserve some sense of proportion and propriety—some sanity.
"Poor little Barbara!"
"It isn't poor little Barbara's book, my dear."
"No," said Fanny. "It isn't."
Meanwhile, if the book was to be ready for publication in the spring, the photographs would have to be taken at once, before the light and the leaves were gone.
So Pyecraft and Pyecraft's man came with their best camera, and photographed and photographed, as long as the fine weather lasted. They photographed the Market Square, Wyck-on-the-Hill; they photographed the church; they photographed Lower Wyck village and the Manor House, the residence—corrected to seat—of Mr. Horatio Bysshe Waddington, the author. They photographed the Tudor porch, showing the figures of the author and of Mrs. Waddington, his wife, and Miss Barbara Madden, his secretary. They photographed the author sitting in his garden; they photographed him in his park, mounted on his mare, Speedwell; and they photographed him in his motor-car. Then they came in and looked at the library and photographed that, with Mr. Waddington sitting in it at his writing-table.
"I suppose, sir," Mr. Pyecraft said, "you'd wish it taken from one end to show the proportions?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Waddington.