"Oh, often. I dream of a big legacy coming to us. And of my going back there and taking up my life in a Kensington studio and studying art. You don't know what cravings come over me to handle pencil and paints again. Mother never had any sympathy with artists. She used to tell me that they were an improvident immoral set, and she will never believe that I could have earned my living by art. She said only one in a hundred made their fortunes by painting, and that I would certainly not be that one. Doesn't it seem hard that here, where I see the wonderful sunsets over the hills, and the beautiful nooks in woods and valleys which are crying out to be painted, I have not the leisure to reproduce them for the benefit of others? I always say that artists are benefactors. It is not a selfish profession. Nothing that you produce is." "And now you're producing milk and butter and corn and all the necessities of life for others by your labour," said Adrienne. "What an idle drone I am beside you!" Phemie laughed merrily, then she pointed down over some fields to a valley in the distance, lined on one side by a fringe of snow-clad pines: "Isn't that a picture?" she exclaimed. "There is one thing—if I am not allowed to make a poor attempt at reproduction, I get pictures for my own delight and pleasure, and pictures fresh from the Hands of God." She soon parted with Adrienne, who went on her way thoughtfully pondering over two round pegs in square holes—Godfrey, who had been turned from a parson into a squire, and Phemie, who had been turned from an artist into a farmer. "And they are both contented and happy," she said. "I wonder if everyone in this world is baulked of their own desires, and I wonder, how I wonder, whether I ought to go to Aunt Cecily or not." CHAPTER II AN ACCIDENT WHEN Adrienne reached home, she was met at the door by Drake with a very solemn face. Drake was virtually the butler, but he was in reality the factotum in the house. He valeted both the Admiral and the General; he initiated the maids as well as the bootboy into their work, and kept his eagle eye on every part of the house. He saw that the brasses were shining, that the floors were well polished, that every nook and corner was thoroughly dusted. If the cook felt ill, he could take her place at a moment's notice, and his cooking did him credit. If horses or dogs were ill, he doctored them; if china was broken, he could mend it. As Adrienne leant upon Mrs. Page, so did the Admiral and General lean upon Drake. Adrienne saw at once that something had happened. "The General has had a nasty fall, miss. He slipped just outside the stable on a bit of ice. We've sent for the doctor. He has hurt his knee, but I don't think it is broken. A bad sprain, I should say. We got him up to his room, and he's on his bed." "Oh, Drake, how dreadful! Poor Uncle Tom!" She ran lightly up the stairs into the big sunny front room, which belonged to the General.