“Oh! Tell you what it is, Matt, we will have our own way, in spite of them. For the present this picture shall be put aside. If in a day or so you can again don your Sunday raiment, and sit to me again in them--if not, I dare say I shall be able to finish the dress from memory. That portrait I shall give to you. In the mean time, as I want one for myself, I will paint you as you are. Do you approve?” Matt nodded her head vigorously. “Very well,” said Brinkley. “Then we will get on.” He removed from his easel and carefully covered the portrait upon which he had been working. Then he put up a fresh cardboard and sat down, inviting Matt to do the same. With the disappearance of the Sunday clothes the girl’s stiffness seemed to have disappeared also, and she became again a veritable child of Nature. She looked like a shaggy young pony fresh from a race on the mountain side as she threw herself on the ground in an attitude which was all picturesqueness and beauty. Then with her plump sunburnt hand she carelessly began to pull up the grass, while her black eyes searched alternately the prospect and the painter’s face. Presently she spoke. “_He_ says you’re a pryin’ scoundrel,” she said. Brinkley looked up and smiled. “Who is _he_, Matt?” “Mr. Monk,” she replied, and gave a jerk with her head in the direction of Monkshurst. “Oh, indeed,” said Brinkley. “It is my amiable equestrian friend, is it? I’m sure I’m much obliged to him. And when, may I ask, did he bore you with his opinion of me?” “Last night, when he come to see William Jones. He said I wasn’t to be took no more, ‘cause you was a scoundrel poking and prying.” Brinkley began to whistle, and went on for a while vigorously touching up his work. Then he looked up and regarded the girl curiously. “Mr. Monk seems to be very much interested in _you_, Matt?” The girl nodded her head vigorously; then remembering the odious caress to which Mr. Monk had subjected her, she began to rub her cheek again violently. “Why is Mr. Monk so interested in you? Do you know?” “P’raps it’s ’cause he found me when I come ashore?” “Oh, _he_ found you, did he? Then why doesn’t he keep you?” “He do, only I live along o’ William Jones.” Again Brinkley began whistling lightly, and working away vigorously with his brush. Presently the conversation began again. “Matt, what things did you come ashore in?” “I dunno!” “You have never heard whether anything was found with you which might lead to your finding your relations?” “No, no more has William Jones. He says maybe they’ll find me some day and reward him; but Mr. Monk says they were all drownded, and I ain’t got no friends ’cept him and William Jones.” “Well, since he found you, I suppose he ought to know; and since you _have_ no relations, Matt, and no claim upon anybody in the world, it was very kind of Mr. Monk to keep you, instead of sending you to the workhouse as he might have done.” On this point Matt seemed rather sceptical.