When we did so, I thought that the interior of the cottage was not much less grand, scarcely less beautiful, than what we had seen without.  At that period most housekeepers held the hardly yet exploded heresy, not only that fresh air was a dangerous and unwholesome luxury, to be denied, as far as might be, to any but the strongest constitutions,[2] but that even sunshine within the doors was an inadmissible intrusion, alike untidy and superfluous.  On these points this house set public opinion at defiance.  It was set, of set purpose, at wrong angles to the points of the compass.  Every wind of heaven could sweep it, at the pleasure of the inmates, through and through, and the piazzas were so arranged that there was not a single apartment in it into which the sun could not look, through one window or another, once at least in the twenty-four hours.  The floors were tiled, ingrained, oiled, matted,—­everything but carpeted, except that of the state drawing-room; and there the Wilton had a covering over it, removed, as I afterwards found, only on occasions of state.  The whole atmosphere seemed full of health, purity, cheerfulness, warmth, and brightness.  Brilliant flowers peeped in at the windows, and were set on the tables in vases, or hung in them from the walls.  And there were pictures, and there were statues, but there too was Miss Dudley, paring a peach for me, for sociability’s sake,—­for she could not eat one herself, so soon after her breakfast; and, as I knew the time must be running away very fast,—­hard that it will always run fastest when we are the happiest!—­I seized my first opportunity to say that few things would give me greater pleasure than to furnish the illustrations she had mentioned, if I could but succeed in executing them as I ought.

“As to that, I will be your sponsor,” returned she, gayly, “if you would like to begin them here.  Your touch is very firm and true; and I will show you all our tricks of color.  Here is my paint-box.  Have you time to-day?”

I had time, and no excuse; though, in falling so suddenly into the midst of painting-lessons from Miss Dudley, I really felt as if I was having greatness thrust upon me in a manner to take my breath away.  If I had only had a little more time to think about it, my touch might have been truer for the nonce.  Her paint-box was so handsomely furnished, too, and so daintily ordered, that I scarcely dared touch it.  She gave me a little respite, however, by rubbing the colors for me,—­colors, some of them, that, for their costliness, I could not allow myself at all at home,—­and selected for me two such exquisite brushes from her store!  Then she lay down beside me on a “couch of Ind,” smiled as I laid her plaid over her feet, and watched me at the work.  How that brought my poor Fanny back to me!  But my new mistress went on unwearyingly, teaching and encouraging me, and, if I was more than satisfied with her, did not on her part show that she was less than satisfied with me.  The clock struck twelve before I dreamed of its taking upon itself to offer such an untimely interruption.