"I say," repeated Baffin, "that you are lacking—that you are damned slow at seeing things!" "Ow, Mr. Baffin, you _are_ a naughty man. Fancy usin’ such wicked words. My mother says it is on’y bad people what uses words like that. My mother cut ’er finger yesterday, makin’ toast. We got the drains up in _our_ ’ouse. Ugly things, them little kittens, ain’t they? I ’ates ’em when they’re crawly, like those." Prudence, making a wry face, pointed to a basket beside the sugar-box. This contained a family of illegitimate kittens which James had adopted out of Christian charity. "I _’ate_ cats," continued Prudence in her childish, sing-song voice. "I ate all animals. I like goin’ to the theayter, though. I like goin’ to church too. I like——" She would have provided us, doubtless, with an exhaustive list of her enthusiasms; but the door of the studio opened, and gave entrance to those brothers of the brush whose coming was expected. They looked upon Prudence, and were staggered. "Where in Hell did you find her?" they inquired of Baffin, and discharged a volley of most wonderful expletives in evidence of their surprise and appreciation and envy. And they hanked her off the sugar-box, and turned her this way and that way, inspecting her "form" in much the same manner as that adopted by farmers when buying horseflesh. "Chin up, please; more to the right. Now to the left. Ah! Get over there, under that top light. Profile, please. Ah! How about shoulders: salt-cellars, I expect; they always have. Pull that thing down. Ah! Not so bad as I feared. No good for the figure, but—but that neck! Trust old Baffin to find ’em, eh, John?" There was to me something inexplicably delightful in the utter sexlessness of this admiration. To say the least, it was ungallant and sane. And Prudence evidently shared this feeling. The childish vanity in her eyes was unmistakable, and she walked back to her throne on the sugar-box with a strut that real queens might have envied. Baffin tried to resume work on the picture; but Prudence’s gifts of anecdote were as yet unexhausted, and she found it necessary to tell what Mr. Wilberforce Baker had said to Mr. Jerningham Jukes, and what Mr. J. J. had said to Mr. W. B., and what she had said to both of them, and what her mother had suffered under chloroform. And she giggled, and she wriggled, and she apologised, and she wept, and she wriggled and she giggled again. And Comrade of Brush No. 1 observed to Comrade of Brush No. 2 that this sort of thing would not be good enough at any price. Comrade No. 2 sniffed assentingly. "And what the blazes," he inquired, "does she want to wear that beastly flannel for?" "Ah!" grunted No. 1. "I say, Baffin, why does she wear red flannel? Makes chaps sick." Baffin referred the matter to headquarters. "What do you dress yourself up like a sore throat for, Prudence?" he inquired. "Why do you wear red flannel?"