Lesbia nearly collapsed, for her own explanations were so clearly at fault. She began again, and tried to make them a little more lucid. It was uphill work, however; for though Terry would gaze at her, apparently drinking in everything she said, he would suddenly come out with a remark which showed that his mind was wandering elsewhere. Poor Lesbia at the end of the half-hour felt they had made little progress. She resolved privately to study the instruction book before to-morrow's lesson, and to prepare some very plain and adequate plan of imprinting musical notation on the grey pulp of Terry's unwilling brain. Despite the fact that her pupil was decidedly a handful, the time at Tunbury was nevertheless a holiday. They went beautiful walks in the fields to pick primroses and dog violets, there was a wood where she played robbers with Terry, and where one day they had a picnic tea and boiled a kettle on a camp fire, there were occasional drives in the pony trap, and a few bicycle rides, with Terry on the luggage-carrier because she could not leave him at home. She felt rather like "Sindbad the Sailor" laden with his "Old Man of the Sea" as she rode along with a pair of small arms clutched tightly round her waist, but she found the treat an excellent bribe for good behaviour and certainly a means of keeping her frisky youth out of mischief. There was one delight in her visit which compensated for many drawbacks. Mr. Stockton was painting a picture of his little son, and every morning Terry had a sitting in the studio. Lesbia came also, and the good-natured artist lent her a canvas, tubes, palette, and brushes, and let her try her 'prentice hand at portraiture in oils. To sit close to Mr. Stockton and watch him paint was a revelation. Lesbia took to the work like a duck to water, and produced something really so very like Terry that her effort won words of warm approval. "It's wonderfully good," declared Mr. Stockton. "You've evidently got some notion of drawing in you. You ought to go and study at a school of art. How old are you? Only sixteen? What you want is to join a life class. You'd soon get on. It isn't everybody who can catch a likeness. The colour of that background is not at all bad for a beginner. My advice is 'Go ahead!'" It was kind advice, and made Lesbia blush with pleasure, but, as she thought privately, it was all very well to say "go ahead" when she had absolutely no prospect of joining a life class. She did not possess an oil paint-box, and even had she one there would be no time among her multitudinous lessons for the practice of portraiture. If her future was to consist of studying, passing exams, and afterwards teaching, Art would have little chance to develop.