“Only a few that I dashed off on my walk hither from Castlebar.”
They were glorious little bits of weather-worn granite, brilliant with gray, green, and orange lichens; luminous green seas and black rocks basking in the sunlight; fern-crowned inlets and cliffs glittering with bright wild flowers. She gushed over them. What girl does not gush over the sketches of a tall, handsome, earnest artist?
“Oh! if I might dare to ask you for one of them, Mr. Brown.”
“Take all,” he said.
She would not hear of this.
“They are your working-drawings, Mr. Brown?” selecting one, possibly the least valuable.
“Will you not require an escort, Miss Jyvecote, on your lonely drive?”
“Escort! No. In the first place, I shall probably not meet a human being; and, in the next, I should only meet a friend were I to encounter any one. I fear my prolonged visit has spoiled your work for to-day, Mr. Brown.”
“My work! You will hardly guess what I am pledged to do and the work I am about to commence. It is nothing less than a copy of the picture of Daniel O’Connell which hangs over the mantel-piece. It is for Mrs. Clancy, who is to adorn her kitchen wall with it.”
“Surely you are not in earnest?”