[Illustration]

‘Let me see, Marjorie,’ said another voice; ’is it the old one with white hair and a long, long beard?’

’No, it’s quite a young one; his hair’s black, and he hasn’t got a beard at all.’

’Let me look.  Yes, I can see him.  I like him much better than the old one; hasn’t he got nice red cheeks?’

‘Hush! he’ll hear,’ said the other voice.  ’You naughty boy!  I believe he did hear; I saw him laugh.’

I jumped up at this, and looked up, but I could see nothing but a garden wall and a thick bushy tree, which was growing just inside it.

‘Hullo, who’s there?’ I shouted.

But there was dead silence; and as no one appeared, and nothing more happened, I sat down and went on with my picture.

Many people passed by as I was painting, and tried to look at what I was doing.  Some glanced out of the corners of their eyes as they walked on; others paused behind me and silently watched me; a few made remarks to one another about my picture; one or two offered suggestions, thought I should have had a better view lower down the hill, or hoped that I would make the colouring vivid enough.  The children with whom I had travelled seemed to feel a kind of partnership in my picture.

‘Let’s go and look at our artist,’ Bob would say to Harry; ’his picture is going to be the best of the lot.’

They were so fond of watching me, and so much excited over what I was doing, that, as time went on, I was often obliged to ask them to move further away, so eager were they to watch every movement of my brush.

I thoroughly enjoyed my morning’s work, and went back very hungry, and quite ready for the comfortable little dinner which Polly had prepared for me.  In the afternoon the light would be all wrong for my picture; but I determined to sketch in the foreground, and prepare for my next morning’s work.

I was very busy upon this, when suddenly I became conscious of music, if music it could be called.  It was the most peculiar sound, and at first I could not find out from whence it came.  It was evidently not caused by a wind instrument; I felt sure it was not a concertina or an accordion.  This sound would go on for a minute or two, and then stop suddenly, only to begin again more loudly a few seconds later.  At times I distinguished a few bars of a tune, then only disjointed notes followed.  Could it be a child strumming idly on a harmonium? but no, it was not at all like an instrument of that kind.  It was an annoying, worrying sound, and it went on for so long that I began to be vexed with it, and stamped my foot impatiently when, after a short interval, I heard it begin again.  The sound seemed to come from behind the wall of the house near which I was sitting, and it was repeated from time to time during the whole of the afternoon.