“It may be because our language is so difficul’,” explained the old man with pride. “We have a saying that the Devil once came here, to our country and stayed seven years. In that time he learn but two words. ... “By” for “Yes,” and “Es,” for “No.” At las’ disgusted by his waste of time, he flew away again, and soon forgot even those two. That is why the evil never comes here.” He sighed in the darkness and Cynthia felt a pang of pity. Even here, among his own people, he was homesick, denied a closer contact with them because of his long years in America. The next morning Cynthia unfolded the camp stool, on which she sat to sketch, beneath the vines at the side of the farmhouse. A stone-paved walk ran back to the little ramshackle studio and M. Marge pottered about in the sunlight with his beehives. Cynthia opened her sketch book, squeezed color onto her palette and set to work. The cuckoo clock behind her ticked steadily with no relation to the hour of the day. Cynthia, rapidly sketching in the grape arbor and the green door in the white wall beyond it, wondered how to get the effect of spattered sunlight where the light dribbled down through leaves, and discovered with a little thrill that part of the trick lay in breaking the color, patting it on in little spats of the brush with flecks of white paper showing between, part in letting the shadow actually dribble off her brush so that it was lightest farthest from the leaves. A small, cooing voice sounded behind her. Turning, she saw on the path, a little girl of six or maybe less, very Basque in her bright blouse and dark blue cotton skirt and bare brown feet thrust into rope soled espadrilles. Her eyes were soft and brown and her hair had been plaited into two pigtails, so tight that they seemed actually to drag her eyelids upwards at the corners. “Oh, you duck!” breathed Cynthia. “What fun if I could paint you!” The brown eyes danced with mischief, and the small mouth was puckered into a demure rosebud. What could have drawn her up the path from the road? Cynthia’s glance followed the child’s. The tick of the clock? But surely she had heard a clock before. Then Cynthia remembered that a moment before it had erratically struck eleven. Laughing, she gestured a query towards the clock. Was that it? The small one nodded shyly. “Sure, I’ll show it to you,” Cynthia offered. “Want to see the birdie, do you?” She put down book and brushes and led the way up the steps. Then she turned the hands gently as she had seen M. Marge do the night before. The bird answered with a startled “Cuck ... oo!” “Oh!” The brown eyes danced with delight, the small hands clapped _ecstatically_. The child came closer.