‘Not this one, but a big one which I shall make from it. It will go to an exhibition, and people will come and look at it. As the subject is quite new and very pretty, I shall ask a big price for it, and there will be lots of bread-and-butter for a long time to come.’ ‘But would anybody care to buy a picture of a woman whom they don’t know, lying asleep in a cornfield?’ cried Rosalie incredulously, and involuntarily raising her drooped lids. ‘Most certainly they will,’ responded the artist confidently. ‘This will be a lovely thing when it is done. I shall come here to-morrow and make a careful study of this stook against which you are lying, and of the field; and I shall look about for a few good types of harvesters to put in the middle distance.’ He was speaking more to himself than to her, but Rosalie listened with deep interest, and watched him sharply through her half-closed lids. Suddenly she saw him laugh. ‘Perhaps if I come across a very attractive specimen of a rustic, I may place him just behind the stook here, peering through the sheaves at you, or bending forward as if he were going to—’ ‘Oh, don’t,’ cried Rosalie, starting violently and opening her eyes wide. ‘No, I won’t have it, I won’t be in the picture at all if you put anything of that kind in!’ ‘Not—if I chose a particularly nice young man?’ inquired the painter, still laughing softly to himself. ‘Not if I chose—_the_ young man?’ ‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean,’ protested she, her cheeks crimson again and her lips quivering. ‘There is no young man.’ ‘Do you mean to tell me, my dear child, that with that face you have lived till now without anyone courting you—as I suppose they would call it?’ ‘Oh, of course they court me,’ Rosalie hastened to admit; ‘but I hate them all. And they are all very ugly,’ she added eagerly, ‘and would look dreadful in a picture.’ ‘There, you are frowning again. Come, let us talk of something less exciting. Keep still, please. So you make butter three times a week, do you? You are a farmer’s daughter, I suppose?’ ‘I was a farmer’s granddaughter,’ she returned. ‘My father was a schoolmaster.’ ‘Ah, that accounts for your educated way of speaking.’ ‘No, father died when I was quite a baby, but my grandfather sent me to school.’ ‘Then you live with your mother, I suppose?’ ‘No, I live alone here. This farm belongs to me.’ She could not help peeping out beneath her lashes to judge of the effect of her words, and was gratified when the busy brush paused and the dark eyes glanced down at her in astonishment. ‘You live alone here? But this is a big farm—you can’t manage it all yourself?’ ‘Yes, I do. It is hard work, but I contrive to do it. I am rather lonely, though.’ ‘That will be remedied in time,’ said the artist encouragingly. ‘The right man will come along, and perhaps,’ he added with that queer smile of his, ‘you won’t find him so ugly as the rest.’