The children sat down again side by side on the stone bench, with their heads close together, and Fani took something out of his pocket which they both examined carefully. It was a small, nicely painted landscape, in fresh bright colors. Elsli studied it silently. “Do you see what it is?” asked Fani. “Yes, indeed, I knew it at the first glance. It is Rosemount; there are the roses and the linden trees. How beautifully you have done it, Fani! Won’t Emma be delighted when she sees it, and surprised too? I’m sure she has no idea that you can paint so well!” “I’m so glad she is coming,” cried the lad, and his face glowed with pleasure. “There is no one that I can talk with about being a painter as I can with her. She understands just how I feel, and is as much interested in it as I am myself.” “Are you still bent on being an artist?” asked Elsli. “Yes, indeed, more and more. Every day, and after every drawing lesson, I care about it more than ever before. I don’t say anything about it, because I see that Mrs. Stanhope doesn’t like the idea. You see, Elsli, she means to keep us with her all our lives, just as if we were her own children. I’m sure of it, from a great many things that she has said. We can stay here just as long as we don’t do anything to displease her, and of course we sha’n’t do that. Several times when I’ve said that I should like to be a painter, Mrs. Stanhope has said that it was a very good profession for persons who had no home, and were obliged to live alone, and could travel as much as they pleased in foreign countries. She said I might paint at Rosemount as much as I chose, but that I must not make it my business, because then I should have to go away to live. So you see that she is quite decided that we are to stay here.” Elsli shook her head. “I don’t know, Fani. It seems to me that we don’t belong here in this beautiful house. Don’t you feel so too, Fani? Somehow as if we were only here on a visit, and that to-morrow we might be going away again.” “There you are again with the old story,” said Fani, rather vexed, for this doubt was very distasteful to him. The time which they had to spend in the garden was now over, and hand in hand they passed back up the white pebbly path, and by the sweet-scented rose-beds, and entered the hall, which stood with wide-open doors on the garden side. CHAPTER II. A JOURNEY.