“Silence and solitude,” he continued, opening the door of a large drawing-room handsomely furnished. “I hope they won’t be long before they introduce us to the luncheon-table. Oysters are popularly supposed to give one an appetite; but the natives we demolished at Frere’s last night must have been sadly degenerate, for I declare to you I could scarcely get through my breakfast this morning. Ah! what have we here?--a water-colour landscape in a semi-chaotic condition. Annie has been sketching, as sure as fate. I’ll introduce a few masterly touches and surprise her.” So saying he seated himself at the table and began dabbling with a brush. “By Jove, I’ve done it now!” he exclaimed in a tone of consternation, after a minute’s pause. “Just look here; I thought I would insert the trunk of a tree in the foreground, and the confounded brush had got red in it, so I have made a thing like a lobster and spoiled the drawing.” “I think, if you wish, I could turn it into a cow, and so get you out of the scrape,” suggested Lewis, smiling at his companion’s guilty countenance. “My dear fellow, the very thing,” exclaimed Leicester, hastily rising and thrusting Lewis into his seat; “let’s have a cow, by all means. That’s famous,” he continued, as with a few graphic strokes Lewis converted the red daub into the semblance of an animal. “Bravo! make her an eye--now the horns--what a fascinating quadruped! Where’s the tail to come?” “You would not see the tail in the position in which the cow is supposed to be lying,” remonstrated Lewis. “Still, it would make it more natural,” urged Leicester. “As a personal favour, just to oblige me, stretch a point and give her a tail.” “There, then, I’ve twisted it under her leg,” said Lewis, making the desired addition; “but depend upon it, there never was a cow’s tail so situated.” “All the greater proof of your talent,” was the reply. “The ideal is what you artists (for I see you are one) are always raving about, and this is a specimen of it.” So engrossed had the two young men been with their occupation that they had not observed the entrance of a third person. The newcomer was that most charming of all created beings, a very lovely girl of seventeen.