"Ah, you have shown taste in this selection; it is one of my favorite views. I am glad you prefer nature to mere copying from another's work which is like accepting other men's ideas, when one is capable of originating them of one's own." He looked at it closely and for some time in silence, then with no further word of praise he criticised it mercilessly, while he pointed out fault after fault. I could only acquiesce in the correctness of his criticisms, and only wondered I should have been so blind as to permit such glaring faults to creep into my work. Of the many scores of drawing and painting lessons I had previously taken, not any twelve of them, to say the least, had widened my knowledge of art as this hour spent with my guardian over that first picture had done. I looked at him with a provoked sort of admiration, surprised that one who knew so well how nature should be imitated, did not, himself, attempt the task, and angry both with him and myself that I was being subjected to such humiliation, while I listened to him as he convinced me the picture I thought so good was a mere daub. I was wise enough, and proud enough too, not to make any sign that I was undergoing torture, and with stoical calmness permitted him, without a single remonstrance, to examine every picture there, even the one containing Thomas in his Sunday suit, as he stood surveying with idealized face, a superb patch of cabbages. "Fancy has run riot with you there entirely; if the gardener were surveying his sweetheart in the church choir he might have some such seraphic expression, but it is utterly thrown away on those vegetables; his face and his broadcloth coat are in perfect harmony," Mr. Winthrop said, with even voice, as he held aloft the picture that all the other members of his household had so greatly admired. "You think, then, the time spent in these has been quite wasted?" I tried to say calmly. "A genuine artist, no doubt, would say without a moment's hesitation that the paint was thrown away. As for the time, he would probably say a young girl's time was of little consequence in any case. I am not an artist, and do not value paint at a high figure; so I most decidedly affirm that you made an excellent use of the paint. Labor conscientiously spent in decorating a barn door is well employed. The door may not be much the better, but the person who tries to improve its appearance with painstaking care is benefited." "Then I may conscientiously continue decorating canvas, or at least trying to do so." "I should certainly desire and advise you to do so; but instead of covering so many, if you would take time and talent in elaborating one picture, I would be better pleased." He laid the pictures to one side. "We will continue this study more exhaustingly in the future; to-day I want to speak of other things. You have made use of my library, Mrs. Flaxman also informs me. Will you please tell me what books you have been reading?"