creation in the artist’s eyes, and possessed a power and boldness of conception which the original lacked, he considered. He put his idea into words, and again Miss Erskine marvelled at his audacity.

“Not bad, is it?” he queried in a tone the self-complacency of which he did not even attempt to disguise. “I strengthened it a bit—thought it would be an improvement, don’t you know.”

“Yes,” agreed Jill, regarding his work with dubious appreciation, “character in a face is greatly to be desired.”

He nodded approvingly.

“I’m glad you think that,” he remarked with increasing satisfaction; “but of course you would.”

“Of course. And, after all, a few inches on to one’s nose hardly signifies, does it? not to mention a jaw that no woman ever possessed outside a show. Your drawing puts me in mind of somebody or other’s criticism on Pope’s translation of Homer—‘a very pretty story, Mr Pope, but it is not Homer.’ Yours is a very wonderful creation, Mr St. John, but it in no wise resembles the copy.”

St. John glared.

“I thought you said you admired character?” he exclaimed.

“So I do; and there is a great deal of character in the original, I consider; but if you wish for a candid opinion, I think your head is simply a masculine monstrosity. But, come, you need not look so angry; we do not win our spurs at the first charge, you know. Must I praise your failures as well as your successes, eh?”

“You don’t think me quite such a conceited fool, I hope,” he said somewhat deprecatingly, though he still looked a little dissatisfied and aggrieved. “I only meant that it wasn’t altogether bad for a first attempt.”

But it was not Jill’s intention to flatter.

“It isn’t altogether good for a first attempt,” she said.

“You are not very encouraging,” he remarked a trifle reproachfully. “Had you been my pupil and I had said so much—”

“I should have thought you very disagreeable,” she interrupted, laughing.

He laughed also; for despite her contrariety her mirth was most infectious, and put him more at ease with her. It was the first glimpse of her natural self that she had vouchsafed him, and he liked it infinitely better than the half-aggressive dignity she assumed in her capacity of teacher.

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