“Please do; she has been so looking forward to your coming; will you be able to suggest any line for her to take up? She doesn’t much like teaching; she was not very happy at home, and (with a slight hesitation) her grandfather makes her no allowance while she is here.” “Poor girl!” exclaimed Mr. Meade, “I expected how it would be; he is a regular old miser. As for Joan, with all her talent, she’s had no proper teaching herself, and hasn’t an idea what real work means. What has she been doing lately?” Embrance, conscious that Joan had been spending the last fortnight in making herself a charming terra-cotta walking dress, looked towards the window, and said that there had been so many fogs, it was bad weather for artists. Mr. Meade nodded, then marched up to the easel, and examined the drawing—a study of roses, white and pink—that Joan had begun a month ago; but even before the roses (which had cost as much as a week’s rent) withered, she had got tired of the drawing, and had put it on one side for a copy of a landscape, intended for the good of her pupil, and also left unfinished. For some minutes he stood there in silence, took the drawings nearer to the light, and carefully replaced them on the easel. “Well?” asked Embrance, anxiously. “What do you think of them?” “I am not a judge; I know so little about it.” “Very likely, but look here” (she came closer to the easel), “you are accustomed to observe. Do you see the grouping of the roses is pretty enough, but there, look, that is quite out of drawing, and the stalk is an absurdity.” Embrance could not stay there any longer in mute acquiescence: “But she is so quick,” she remonstrated, “and has a real love”—for painting, she was about to say, but her sense of truth turned the sentence into: “for anything that is beautiful!” He turned away from the window with a sigh. “As an amateur, it is all very well, but otherwise, I don’t see what is to be done. Poor little Joan! It’s a bad business; how is she looking, Miss Clemon?” “Prettier than ever, I think.” “I am glad to hear it. She is a charming companion, and I am very glad that you like her. It is a comfort to know that she has got such a good friend in you.” Embrance blushed, feeling very uncomfortable, and half inclined to resent his remarks. It was rather late in the day for a complete stranger to interfere in such an old friendship as hers and Joan’s. “However,” she reflected, “I am sure he is very fond of her; I wish she would come in.” “Perhaps,” continued Horace Meade, “you think that I have no business to say this; but the fact is, that I had expected to find, at least I had not expected to find—that is to say——” He stopped abruptly, and Embrance could not refrain from laughing: “You had imagined that Joan had set up housekeeping with a strong-minded woman of the most extreme type, who didn’t care what became of her.” “No, no, indeed!” began Horace, but she would go on.