"Keep back and let the ladies alone!" commanded Abel in a stentorian voice. "Where are your manners got to? If you've finished, missie, you'll maybe not object to my takin' a look. Well, for sure, there I be to the life!" "Wherever that picture goes in all the world, Abel Barnes will go with it!" piped a small awestruck voice in the background. "Yes, she'll take me away with her," replied Abel, in a tone that implied some gratification--perhaps a touch of vanity lingered under the blue flannel shirt. "If I'd but a-been in my Sunday clothes!" he continued regretfully. "Still, you've only to say the word, and I'll put 'em on for you any day you've a mind to take I again, and you could draw the missis too, and the house, if you like. I were goin' to give the railings a fresh coat o' paint anyways, so I may as well do it afore you begins." Finding that Katrine would not commit herself to any rash promises, he finally strolled away, possibly to buy a tin of paint, or to review his Sunday garments in anticipation of the hoped-for portrait. The children, filled with envy at his distinction, were all eager to volunteer as models, and began posing in the road in various stiff and photographic attitudes. "Put in I! Put in I!" implored each and all. "I shan't put in anybody if you don't behave yourselves," replied Katrine severely. "How can I see anything when you're standing exactly in front of me? Go away at once, and leave us quiet!" To remove themselves from the vicinity of the interesting strangers was, however, not at all in the children's calculations. They only backed, and formed a close ring again round the exasperated girls, breathing heavily, and keeping up a chorus of whispered comments. Katrine and Gwethyn sighed ruefully, but judged it better to follow Miss Aubrey's example and take no notice, hoping that their tormentors might presently tire, and run off to play marbles or hop-scotch. The cottage proved by no means an easy subject to sketch; it needed very careful spacing and drawing before they could secure a correct outline. It would have been hard enough if they had been alone and undisturbed, but to be obliged to work in full view of a frank and critical audience was particularly trying. Every time they rubbed anything out, a small voice would cry: "Missed again! She can't do it!" "I never realized before how often I used my india-rubber," murmured poor Gwethyn. "They seem to think I'm making a series of very bad shots." "I wonder if I dare begin my sky, or if I ought to show the drawing to Miss Aubrey first," said Katrine. "I believe I shall venture. How I wish a motor-car would come along and scatter these wretched infants, or that their mothers would call them in for a meal!" There was no such luck. The sight of the mixing of cobalt blue and Naples yellow on Katrine's palette only caused the children to press yet closer. "Oh, look! This lady be doing it in colours!" they shouted. "She be cleverer than the other lady."