"I'm sorry you're not pleased," he said coldly. "I aim at truthfulness, you see, and that is what you don't get in a professional photograph. It's no good wasting time, simply to get oneself disliked. I'll go in for nature, and leave the portrait business to somebody else. The girls can try! They think they can do everything!" Peggy looked at Esther, and Esther looked at Peggy. They did not say a word, but a flash of understanding passed from the brown eyes to the grey, which meant that they were on their mettle. They were not going to defend themselves, but henceforth it was a case of die, or produce a good photograph, and so oblige Oswald to alter his tone of scornful incredulity. For the next week the camera was the one engrossing thought. Every minute that could be spared was devoted to experiments, so that Fräulein complained that lessons were suffering in consequence. The hearts of her pupils were not in their work, she declared; it would be a good thing if a rule could be made that no more photographs were to be taken until the Christmas holidays. She looked very fierce and formidable as she spoke, but soft-hearted Mrs. Asplin put in a plea for forgiveness. "Ah, well, then, have patience for a few days longer," she begged. "They are just children with a new toy; let them have as much of it as they will at first, and they will tire of their own accord, and settle down to work as well as ever. We can control their actions, but not their thoughts; and I'm afraid if I forbade photography at present, you would find them no more interested in lessons. I fancy there is something especially engrossing on hand this week, and we might as well let them have it out." Even Mrs. Asplin, however, hardly realised the thoroughness with which the girls were setting to work to achieve their end. They held a committee meeting on Esther's bed, sitting perched together in attitudes of inelegant comfort, with arms encircling their knees, and chins resting on the clasped hands, wherein it was proposed and seconded that Peggy, the artistic, should pose and take the sitters, while Esther, the accurate, should undertake the after processes. "And what am I to do?" cried Mellicent plaintively, and her elders smiled upon her with patronising encouragement. "You shall wash up all the trays and glasses, and put them neatly away."