The servant stared at the new inmate of the “Heather Bell,” unrestrainedly, as she lay there, in bed, her pretty hair ruffled over her forehead, and the disfiguring spectacles lying on the dressing-table beside her. Mrs. Elles did not know what hour it was; she had left her watch behind her in Newcastle, but she was sure she had been lying awake for hours and hours, listening to the bewildering chorus of birds from the pear tree all round her window, and the rub-a-dub of the churning in the yard below. “Nine o’clock, you say? Why did you not call me earlier? Has Mr. Rivers gone out sketching already?” was her first thoughtless question. “Yes, ma’am!” “Does he go every day?” Mrs. Elles further enquired, forgetting, too, to correct the title. “Every day, unless it rains.” “And what does he do then?” “Bides at home and pents.” Mrs. Elles was recalled to a sense of the impropriety of all these questions on her part, and she dismissed the girl haughtily. She dressed, put back her hair, and resumed her spectacles with a sigh, but without hesitation. She had no full length mirror here to show her the oddish, but not ungraceful appearance that she presented, for, although her facial beauties were temporarily obscured, her slight figure in its boyish trim had a certain attractiveness of its own. The average glance would cursorily set her down for a well-grown school girl, labouring under a temporary affection of the eyes, which was, however, not serious enough to interfere with her health and spirits. After she had breakfasted, in pursuance of a plan that she had conceived, she got one of the landlady’s sons to drive her over to Barnard Castle, where she purchased an outfit of drawing materials and a cheap Student’s Manual of Art. In the afternoon--Mr. Rivers, she ascertained, never came back to the inn for luncheon, but took out some sandwiches, which he ate, if he remembered to do so--she selected a point of view, just by the bridge over the Greta, a stone’s throw from the inn. She there began a study of the Student’s Manual, and her own capabilities in the way of handling a pencil. She had had no previous training, but she was just clever enough to produce a not utterly despicable result, and that was all she had dared to hope. She did not expect to see the artist that day, nor did she; but she was not bored, although she had no one to speak to, and, to a woman of her temperament, that fact alone would, in the ordinary course of things, have engendered complete despair. But then, things were not by any means in their ordinary course; the very air was full of adventure and excitement of the vaguest and most blameless nature. Mrs. Elles had no precise idea of what it was that she hoped and desired, and with the unconscious diplomacy of the dual mind, took very good care not even to formulate it.