"What do you call him?" I inquired, in a shameless attempt to prolong the conversation.

"Winston Churchill," she said, with another smile. "He was christened before I got him."

"His jaw is certainly well developed," I observed.

She laughed, and a short pause followed.

"Well," she said, "I must be getting back."

"But really," I protested, "you have only just arrived." Then a sudden fit of recklessness seized me. "Don't go because your lunch is spoiled," I pleaded. "I have a whole tongue, to say nothing of some excellent bread, and some good, if rather dilapidated, butter. As the destroyer of your sandwiches I can surely without impertinence offer you a fair compensation."

She shook her head, still smiling.

"Oh, I don't think you are impertinent," she said, "but I believe that no really nice girl ever accepts an invitation from a perfect stranger. It would distress me to think that I was outside the pale."

Her brown eyes twinkled so deliriously that I cast subterfuge to the winds.

"Do stay," I begged. "I have been alone all the morning wrestling with an obstinate picture, and I am desperately in need of a little cheering society. Besides, there is nothing so very unconventional in the idea. Winston Churchill will make a most efficient chaperon."