"The lame Miss Ward had long odds, but my little-friend of the omnibus beat her hollow. Can you fancy Titania coming down her ladder of cobwebs? Well, you should see Miss Ward number two, running downstairs--it would give you a notion of it. And there was the golden apple on the door-mat waiting for her." "You are very absurd," returned his hearer, laughing, "but your description amuses me, so please go on." "There is something very refreshing in such originality," he murmured, languidly. "I have an idea that Gwen would love those girls. Gwen is all for nature and reality. Conventionality might have suggested that it was hardly mannerly to leave a guest in an empty room, even for golden apples, but no such idea would have occurred to the Misses Ward. They even forgot that sound ascends, and that I could hear every word." "Dear me, that was very awkward!" But the lady spoke maliciously. "I could hear every word," he repeated, and then his eyes twinkled; but he was honourable enough not to repeat the little conversation. "Father, Monsieur Blackie is upstairs!" and here Mollie giggled. "His real name is Ingram, but Ann calls him Mr. Ink-pen." "All right, my pet; so I suppose I had better go upstairs;" but Waveney pulled him back. "Wait a moment, father dear. What a hurry you are in! And your hair is so rough, and your coat is dusty. Give me the brush, Mollie. We must put him tidy. Dad, such a wonderful thing has happened. Mr. Ingram wants to buy King Canute 'for a rich friend who has a picture-gallery,' and he will pay you five-and-twenty guineas." "Nonsense, child!" But from his tone Mr. Ward was becoming excited too. "Let me pass, Mollie; you are forgetting your manners, children, leaving a visitor alone;" and Everard Ward marched into the studio, with his head unusually high. "The 'golden apple,' _alias_ Ward _père_, was a shabby, fair little man with a face like a Greek god," continued Ingram. "He must have been a perfect Adonis in his youth. He had brown pathetic eyes, rather like a spaniel's--you know what I mean, eyes that seemed always to be saying, 'I am a good fellow, though I am down on my luck, and I should like to be friends with you.'" It was evident that the two men took to each other at once. Ingram's pleasant manners and undisguised cordiality put Mr. Ward at his ease, and in a few minutes they were talking as though they were old friends. The subject of 'King Canute' was soon brought forward again, and Ingram explained matters with a good deal of tact and _finesse_. Everard Ward reddened, and then he said bluntly, "You are very good, Mr. Ingram, to offer me such a handsome price, but sheer honesty compels me to say the picture is not worth more than ten pounds. I have not worked out the subject as well as I could wish." And then he added, a little sadly, "It is a poor thing, but my own."