"I am so sorry that you should have found me out," she exclaimed; "I started early with the intention of being back in time, but--well accidents will happen, won't they? It was unfortunate but I am glad to see that you were going to begin without me. Have you found a copy?" "Yes," he answered coolly, keeping his glance fixed full upon her face, "a Biblical one; but I am afraid it is rather beyond me." He held it towards her, and, all unconscious of what it was, she took it from him, glanced at it, then bent her head lower to conceal her features and the vivid blush which overspread her face. "It's--it's decidedly beyond you," she said, and there was a note of defiance in her voice, he even fancied that he detected a ring of laughter in it also, but that might have been his imagination. "Yes," he agreed, "so I thought." "It's very strange but it seems to me to be a little--a little like-- you," she continued, and then she raised her eyes to scan his face looking from him to the sketch and back again with her head on one side and a gleam of mischievous amusement in her glance. Evidently she intended braving it out; though it was easily seen that she was feeling both awkward and uncomfortable. "Not a little," he corrected, "but _very much_ like me." "Ah! so you perceive it also? Yes, it _is_ very much like you. Strange! I wonder how it got there?" "So do I," he answered dryly. "It is also a case for speculation how your handwriting got on the bottom of the paper." "Why, so it is, `Saint John the Beloved,' whose beloved, I wonder, that's a case for speculation also." She tossed the sketch on to the table and stood facing him with such an assured, audacious air that he could find nothing to say, so fell to scowling again in lieu of any verbal expression of his opinion concerning her. She had perfect control of herself now, and meant to give him no further satisfaction, indeed she was vexed to know that he had managed to confuse her at all; but it had been such an altogether unexpected contretemps and had taken her so entirely aback. She smiled at the angry young man, and began slowly pulling off her gloves. "If you wish to copy that, Mr St. John," she began, "you are welcome to make the attempt, but it is rather advanced. I should advise you to give your attention to something simpler." As she finished speaking she turned to a portfolio against the wall and abstracted thence a series of heads in outline, showing the method of working. These she placed on the table before him and ran through a brief explanation of the method, and how he should follow it, while he watched her in gloomy silence, and reluctantly admired the easy mastery with which she sketched in the first head for him to see. "There," she exclaimed, "now you know how to go on so I will leave you for a moment while I go and take off my outdoor things."