The face he had drawn with great minuteness, and as he found himself reproducing, with a faithfulness for which he had scarcely dared to hope, the laughing anguish of the girl, it crossed his mind, but for one moment only, that he was doing rather a questionable thing. He had no idea who his subject was. She might or might not be a resident in Wroxton, she might or might not come to the picture exhibition, and then find a portrait of herself; and how she would take it if she did was equally problematical. Jack confessed to himself that he knew nothing whatever of her. All he had seen was her laugh; she might be able to frown; he did not know. But the scruple lasted so short a time, and was in itself of so slight a nature, that it never reoccurred. Artists, it is said, do their work in a sort of somnambulism; it seemed to Jack that he worked in a state of intoxication. He lived riotously when the brush was in his hand, his mind sang and shouted as he worked. Certainly as he progressed with it--and day by day it continued to prosper and live on the canvas--he was frankly surprised at the vividness with which the moment had been impressed upon him. The girl had a moonstone brooch on, the dog a silver collar; the sunlight caught some outlying hairs on her head, and though they were black, it turned them into gold. All these things and a hundred like them he had hardly been conscious of seeing until he began to record them. On the fourth day it was finished, and as soon as it was dry he sent it to Miss Clifford. The day after he was leaving himself and going back to work, and he seemed to himself to have had no holiday at all. Yet he did not regret it; somehow his occupation had taken hold of his mind, and when he looked at the finished thing he knew that conscious humble pride which alone is sufficient reward to the artist for what he has done. “It is good,” he said to himself. “I wish I had seen that girl again,” he added. CHAPTER VII Phœbe had not been very kind when she heard that her sister had been so bold-faced, as she called it, to ask Jack Collingwood for a sketch. “You don’t know what interpretation might be put on such a thing,” she said, and indeed it was difficult to conjecture. But Clara attributed this severity as much to the tooth-ache as anything else, and in point of fact when the picture arrived, Phœbe, who would usually spend a quarter of an hour over untying a knot rather than cut it, fetched the scissors in less than no time, and behaved as if string was not a precious metal. “It is kind of him,” said Clara. “See what a size, Phœbe! though perhaps that may be mostly frame. I know artists are very fond of putting large frames on small pictures. Oh, dear, there is another wrapper!” The picture was undone at last, and the two peered closely into it, in the approved fashion. Suddenly Clara started.