It was one of Mrs. Collingwood’s chiefest pleasures in the artistic line to be able to see the “original” of a picture she had noticed, or to recognise in a picture an “original” she knew. She cared, in fact, more for the fact that a picture represented a place she knew than she did for its merits. She always bought a catalogue when she went to a picture exhibition, and always marked with a cross the pictures which had pleased her most. These would be found to be representations of places she knew. Occasionally, when she knew a place very well, she would have given the picture two crosses, but two crosses in Mrs. Collingwood’s catalogue were as rare as double stars in Baedeker. Any part of Wroxton Cathedral would receive one, and Grasmere had a chance. This favourable reception of her first request made Miss Clara even bolder. She was afraid that Phœbe might consider her conduct unladylike, but Phœbe was not there. She turned to Jack. “We should be so much honoured,” she said, “if you could lend us a sketch, a mere sketch. It would be the greatest pleasure, and I would be responsible for its being well hung.” “I have nothing with me here,” said Jack, “but”--and a thought struck him--“but when must the pictures be sent in by?” “The exhibition opens in ten days,” said Miss Clifford. “Certainly then, I shall be charmed,” he said. “It will only be a sketch, you know, but you shall have it this week. Shall I send it to your house?” Miss Clifford was overwhelmed with gratitude. She looked round, indeed, apprehensively at Mrs. Collingwood, but neither she nor the Canon appeared to have thought her request unmaidenly. The triumph of having secured a sketch by Jack was so great that even Phœbe would probably be lenient. Jack had come to Wroxton nominally for a holiday, but as soon as Miss Clifford had left he began working at his sketch. He found, as he had hoped, that the scene of the afternoon was very clearly visualized, and by dinner-time he had sketched it out as he meant it to be. He felt an extraordinary delight in the work, and as he progressed with it it became more and more capable of becoming a picture. In fact, before dinner his promised sketch, which he had intended to be an eighteen-inch water-colour, had so changed in scheme that he determined to make an oil picture of it, three feet by two. Whether or not it would be finished in the three days in which he had promised that Miss Clifford should have it was more than doubtful, but he had forgotten Miss Clifford. All he knew was that a picture was in his head.