She was quite unprepared for the terrible frown that appeared on his mild countenance when she preferred this innocent-seeming request. “You must excuse me, please. I cannot bear to show my things before they are done. I could never work at them again if I did. It is a peculiarity of mine--dreadful, but--here is Billy! I am afraid he will have spilt most of the milk by the time he gets here.” “Mr. Rivers, sir,” said the boy, as soon as he got within earshot, “Farmer says as one o’ they little black pigs--you knows ’em, sir--?” “Intimately, every one of them,” replied the artist, bitterly. “It’s your business to keep them off me, you young villain, and instead of that you go and let them rout about in my colour box---- ” “That’s just it, sir,” Billy answered, grinning joyfully; “one of ’em has died suddent-like, and Farmer says as how it died along of eating those little sticky things o’ yourn that squeedge in and out.” “One of my oil-colour tubes! What nonsense! Just go and tell Mr. Ward--no, stop; I’ll speak to him myself, later.” He turned and laughed at Mrs. Elles very pleasantly. “What an absurd thing! But I certainly have missed my Naples yellow, lately.” She laughed too. “Now I have heard your name,” she said. “Edmund Rivers.” “Yes, Edmund Rivers, the famous landscape-painter--you see I know all about your fame--and I have a letter of yours in my pocket.” As a matter of fact, she had not, she was thinking of the muslin dress she had worn days ago, into whose pocket she had thrust the autograph letter Egidia had given her. The dress was in her bag, lying at the Porter’s lodge, a mile away. Still it sounded better. The artist luckily did not ask to see the letter, but looked puzzled, and a little displeased. “I collect autographs!” she went on hastily, “and Miss Giles--Egidia, you know, the famous novelist--gave it to me. She said she was a relation of yours. She is a great friend of mine, too. I am on my way to stay with her.” “Oh, indeed!” he said, stiffly. “But I must ask you,” she went on, clasping her hands together, “not to mention my name to her when you write, or even to say that you have seen me. Please promise?” “But, my dear madam, I don’t know your name, and am never likely to.” “Oh, yes; but indeed you must know my name,” she said simply, “Miss Frick.” It was a pseudonym adopted on the spur of the moment; she had known a German governess of the name. Once fairly launched in fiction she went on easily. “I am the daughter of a country clergyman, and he’s very poor--we are seven--and we all earn our bread. It is a very strange story. My father married again, an odious woman none of us could live with. I did type-writing--that is how I weakened my eyes--and then I broke down, and I had to go into the country for my health.” “I am very sorry to hear all this,” said the artist, languidly.