I looked, of course, to please him. It was a pretty view of my own house at Estcourt, with the orphan children who lived there playing on the terrace--very pretty, and very minute--so clear that I fancied I could recognize the children. It pleased me mightily. “_You_ did it, Johnnie,” cried I, much gratified. “I am very much pleased; but I never knew you were a ‘photographic artist’ before.” “No more I was,” said Johnnie, who rather affected a little roughness of speech, “till they got me a camera the other day. Of course I know it was Alice, and that somehow or other she’s spared it off herself. Do you know whether there’s anything she ought to have had that she hasn’t, Mrs. Crofton? One can never find Alice out. She doesn’t go when she’s made a sacrifice for you and keep hinting and hinting to let you know, as some people do; but look here--isn’t it horrible to think I’m grown up and yet have to stay at home like a girl, and can’t do anything. Now that I’m able to do these slides, I’d give my ears if I could sell them. I’d go and stand in the market at Simonborough. But of course it’s no use speaking. Don’t you think, Mrs. Crofton, that there’s surely something in the world that could be done by a cripple like me?” “I have no doubt a dozen things,” said I, boldly; “but have a little patience, Johnnie. Maurice is ten years older than you are, and he does nothing that I can see. Besides, it is holiday time--I forbid you to think of anything but the new camera to-night. Is it a good one? What a pleasure it must be for all of you,” I continued, looking once more into the stereoscope, where, most singular of optical delusions, I certainly saw a pretty new winter bonnet, the back of which, in the wardrobe of Alice, I had already made a memorandum of, floating over the picture of my old house. “Ah,” said Johnnie, with a sigh, “if I were a fellow like Maurice!--but here, Di, you have not seen this,” he added, transferring another slide into that wooden box. Grave little Di looked at it, and summoned her sister with a little scream of delight. “It’s Miss Harley and Baby Sedgwick,” said Di, “and I do believe if any one was little enough they could go round behind her in the picture. Oh! let me tell Derwent and Clara, Mr. John!” Mr. John was very graciously pleased to exhibit his handiwork to any number of spectators, and shortly we all gathered round the stereoscope. Alice stood looking on very demurely, while we were examining her in that pretty peep-show; she listened to all the usual observations with due calm, while Johnnie, quite in a flush of pleasure, produced the pictures, at which I understood afterwards the poor youth had been working all day long, one by one out of the box. “My love,” said Miss Polly, in a mild aside, “I’d like to see you just so in a house of your own, my dear.” Alice colored slightly; very slightly--it was against her principles to blush--and made no answer, except a slight shake of her head.