“I must get some work done somehow, Sheila,” he said, although he did not tell her that he had not finished a picture since his marriage. “I wish I could do some of it for you,” she said. “You! All the work you’re good for is catching fish and feeding ducks and planting things in gardens. Why don’t you come down and feed the ducks in the Serpentine?” “I should like to do that,” she answered. “I will go any day with you.” “Well,” he said, “you see, I don’t know until I get along to the studio whether I can get away for the forenoon; and then if I were to come back here, you would have little or no time to dress. Good-bye, Sheila.” “Good-bye,” she said to him; giving up the Serpentine without much regret. But the forenoon had turned out so delightful that she thought she would go along to the studio, and hale him out of that gaunt and dingy apartment. She should take him away from town; therefore, she might put on that rough, blue dress in which she used to go boating in Loch Roag. She had lately smartened it up a bit with some white braid, and she hoped he would approve. Did the big hound know the dress? He rubbed his head against her arm and hand when she came down, and looked up and whined almost inaudibly. “You are going out, Bras, and you must be a good dog and not try to go after the deer. Then I will send a very good story of you to Mairi; and when she comes to London after the harvest is over, she will bring you a present from the Lewis, and you will be very proud.” She went out into the square, and was, perhaps, a little glad to get away from it, as she was not sure of the blue dress and the small hat with its sea-gull’s feather being precisely the costume which she ought to wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, and in the lightness of her heart she continued the conversation with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low whine or a shake of his shaggy head.