The girl’s cheeks were as rosy as the dawn, either with the exercise in the pure air or the pleasure of meeting him. After greeting her, he cried: “You got my telegram, then?” “Yes. Have you any money left after sending it?” “Oh, I’m in funds to-day. I sold a picture for a thousand pounds yesterday to a Chicago man. They know how to buy, those Western fellows! He took one of the burnt-umber night scenes, made me sign my name on it in scarlet with letters three inches long, and then told me with a chuckle, after it was done, that he would have given a couple of hundred extra for the signature if I had held out. Thus are we poor artists imposed upon! Still, the scarlet lettering completely killed the half-tones in the painting, and ruined it, in my opinion; but he said it was the signature he wanted, so we are both satisfied. He was a perfectly frank heathen: said he could buy better paintings in Chicago for five dollars each, with a discount off if he took a quantity, but that people over there wouldn’t have the work of the native artists at any price. He proudly claimed to know nothing about art himself--tinned goods was his line. I said I supposed that was all right as long as the goods brought in the tin, and he replied that that was what he was after.” “Well, I’m sure I congratulate you.” “Me? Now, Lady Mary, I call that hard lines. I thought you were a friend of mine--I did, indeed.” “I am. May I not congratulate you on selling a picture?” “No, your ladyship; no, m’um! But you might congratulate the Chicago man. I feel that he did me out of two hundred. Oh, he’s got a bargain, and he knows it! I tell you what it is, my pictures are getting so expensive that I am beginning to realize it is reckless extravagance for me to have so many of them hanging in my studio. It looks like ostentation, and I hate that. That’s why I took the thousand, merely to get rid of it.” “Did it take you long to paint?” “Yes, a good while. Of course I can’t tell just how long, for one does not do a masterpiece like that right off the reel, don’t you know. I suppose I must have spent as much as six hours on it, off and on. You see you have to wait until the groundwork dries before you can go on with the rest. I first, with a big brush, covered the whole of the canvas with burnt-umber, and then let it dry. That’s night, as it would appear if there were no lights anywhere. Then you put in your high lights--little dabs of white paint. That seems easy, but I tell you it requires genius. Then, if there is water, even though unseen to the general eye, you put in little wabbly lines of grey paint under the dots of high light, and there you are, don’t you know. It all seems simple enough to talk about, and plenty of fellows are trying it, now I have shown them the way; but somehow they don’t hit it off, don’t you know. But sink the shop in a Surrey lane; I hate talking shop, anyhow! Now, am I going to get my invitation, or am I not?”