Mrs. Allingham says that most of her drawings are marked in her memory by some local comment concerning them. In this case a bystander sympathetically remarked that it seemed "a mighty tedious job," in that of "Milton's House" that "it was a foolish little thing when you began"--the most favourable criticism she ever encountered only amounting to "Why, it's almost worth framing!" [Illustration: 4. THE ROBIN _From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. S. H. S. Lofthouse._ Painted 1898.] One of the simplest, and yet one of the most satisfying of Mrs. Allingham's compositions. It is clearly not a morning to stay indoors with needlework which neither in size nor importance calls for table or chair. Besides, at the cottage gate there is a likelier chance of interruption and conversation with occasional passers-by. But, at no time numerous on this Surrey hillside, these are altogether lacking at the moment, and the pink-frocked maiden has to be content with the very mild distraction afforded by the overtures of the family robin, who is always ready to open up converse and to waste his time also in manœuvres and pretended explorations over ground in her vicinity, which he well knows to be altogether barren of provender. CHAPTER II PAINTRESSES, PAST AND PRESENT Man took advantage of his strength to be First in the field: some ages have been lost; But woman ripens earlier, and her life is longer-- Let her not fear. The fair sex is so much in evidence in Art to-day (the first census of this century recording the names of nearly four thousand who profess that calling) that we are apt to forget that the lady artist, worthy of a place amongst the foremost of the other sex, is a creation of modern growth. Paintresses--to call them by a quaint and agreeable name--there have been in profusion, and an author, writing a quarter of a century ago, managed to fill two bulky volumes[1] with their biographies; but the majority of these have owed both their practice and their place in Art to the fact of their fathers or husbands having been engaged in that profession.