I had time, and no excuse; though, in falling so suddenly into the midst of painting-lessons from Miss Dudley, I really felt as if I was having greatness thrust upon me in a manner to take my breath away. If I had only had a little more time to think about it, my touch might have been truer for the nonce. Her paint-box was so handsomely furnished, too, and so daintily ordered, that I scarcely dared touch it. She gave me a little respite, however, by rubbing the colors for me,--colors, some of them, that, for their costliness, I could not allow myself at all at home,--and selected for me two such exquisite brushes from her store! Then she lay down beside me on a "couch of Ind," smiled as I laid her plaid over her feet, and watched me at the work. How that brought my poor Fanny back to me! But my new mistress went on unwearyingly, teaching and encouraging me, and, if I was more than satisfied with her, did not on her part show that she was less than satisfied with me. The clock struck twelve before I dreamed of its taking upon itself to offer such an untimely interruption. "Now I am nicely rested," said she, soon after; "and I am afraid you must begin to be nicely tired. Do you not?" "No, indeed; I seldom do till nine o'clock at night." "Then we will indulge ourselves here still a little longer. But hark! Are not there my little people back from school?" The expression common to those who love children stole into her face. Young voices were drawing nearer. "Come to my arms, O lovely cherub!" said one that had a boyish sound in it, paternally. "Look out and see them," whispered Miss Dudley to me. I peeped through the blinds. A handsome and very graceful olive-hued boy, apparently about fourteen years old, with a form like that of the Mercury upborne by a zephyr, eyes like stars, lashes like star-beams, and an expression that would have made him a good study for a picture of Puck, half leaning, half sitting, on the stone balustrade, was tenderly dandling in his arms a huge, vulgar-looking, gray, striped stable-cat, that rolled and writhed therein in transports of comfort and affection. "But, indeed, Paul," remonstrated another voice, _tout comme un serin_, "Pet ought to be whipped instead of hugged! Lily says so." "Tiger Lily? What a cruel girl! O, my Pettitoes! how can she say so?" "Why," answered another girlish voice, a little firmer, but hardly less sweet, than the first, "only think! While we were all in school, he watched his opportunity and killed the robin that lives in the crab-apple-tree. The gardener says he heard it cry, and ran with his hoe; and there was this wicked, horrid, grim, great Pet galloping as fast as he could gallop to the stable, with its poor little beak sticking out at one side of his grinning mouth, and its tail at the other!"