“Oh! never from the nude, of course. Unless it was a foot. I think you drew from a foot once, Nancy, love.”
“Oh, yes, mamma; but the model only came once. She hadn’t understood that she must take her stockings off.”
Pamela was yawning. “I haven’t studied art,” she said curtly.
“Literature? A great many girls go in for that. We had an author at Mere Cottage. A most extraordinary person. He put a Latin text over his door. What was it, Nancy?”
“Parva domus magna quies, mamma.”
“Yes, something like that. I’m not quite sure that your Latin is right. But Egbert would know. He is my son at Cambridge.”
“The people were so puzzled,” said Nancy. “Old Mrs. Chalcraft declared it meant knock and ring. But one of the other old women said it was a spell to keep witches away.”
“It was a stupid thing to put,” Mrs. Turle broke in with impatience. “‘A little house for great quiet.’ That is how my son translated it—my youngest son at Cambridge. That is absurd, of course; little houses never are quiet.”
“But he meant, mamma, that he didn’t want people to call.”
“Then he need not have troubled to put such a sentence over his door, dear. Old Timms, who is a painter by trade, was half afraid to do it.”