Apennines, pencil in hand and knapsack on back, sleeping on straw and eating black bread and beans, but feasting on local color, rioting, as it were, on chiaroscuro, and laying up a treasure of pictorial observations.  He took a devout satisfaction in his hard-earned wisdom and his happy frugality.  Rowland went the next day, by appointment, to look at his sketches, and spent a whole morning turning them over.  Singleton talked more than he had ever done before, explained them all, and told some quaintly humorous anecdote about the production of each.

“Dear me, how I have chattered!” he said at last.  “I am afraid you had rather have looked at the things in peace and quiet.  I did n’t know I could talk so much.  But somehow, I feel very happy; I feel as if I had improved.”

“That you have,” said Rowland.  “I doubt whether an artist ever passed a more profitable three months.  You must feel much more sure of yourself.”

Singleton looked for a long time with great intentness at a knot in the floor.  “Yes,” he said at last, in a fluttered tone, “I feel much more sure of myself.  I have got more facility!” And he lowered his voice as if he were communicating a secret which it took some courage to impart.  “I hardly like to say it, for fear I should after all be mistaken.  But since it strikes you, perhaps it ’s true.  It ’s a great happiness; I would not exchange it for a great deal of money.”

“Yes, I suppose it ’s a great happiness,” said Rowland.  “I shall really think of you as living here in a state of scandalous bliss.  I don’t believe it ’s good for an artist to be in such brutally high spirits.”

Singleton stared for a moment, as if he thought Rowland was in earnest; then suddenly fathoming the kindly jest, he walked about the room, scratching his head and laughing intensely to himself.  “And Mr. Hudson?” he said, as Rowland was going; “I hope he is well and happy.”

“He is very well,” said Rowland.  “He is back at work again.”

“Ah, there ’s a man,” cried Singleton, “who has taken his start once for all, and does n’t need to stop and ask himself in fear and trembling every month or two whether he is advancing or not.  When he stops, it ’s to rest!  And where did he spend his summer?”

“The greater part of it at Baden-Baden.”

“Ah, that ’s in the Black Forest,” cried Singleton, with profound simplicity.  “They say you can make capital studies of trees there.”

“No doubt,” said Rowland, with a smile, laying an almost paternal hand on the little painter’s yellow head.  “Unfortunately trees are not Roderick’s line.  Nevertheless, he tells me that at Baden he made some studies.  Come when you can, by the way,” he added after a moment, “to his studio, and tell me what you think of something he has lately begun.”  Singleton declared that he would come delightedly, and Rowland left him to his work.