“Ay, do:  draw it as it appeared on a late occasion:  with two ladies flying out of it, and you rooted with dismay.”

“There is no need; that scene is engraved.”

“Where? in all the shops?”

“No; on all our memories.”

“Not on mine; not on mine.  How terrified you were—­ha, ha! and how terrified we should have been if you had not.  Listen:  once upon a time—­don’t be alarmed:  it was long after Noah—­a frightened hare ran by a pond; the frogs splashed in the water, smit with awe.  Then she said, ’Ah ha! there are people in the world I frighten in my turn; I am the thunderbolt of war.’  Excuse my quoting La Fontaine:  I am not in ’Charles the Twelfth of Sweden’ yet.  I am but a child.”

“And it’s a great mercy, for when you grow up, you will be too much for me, that is evident.  Come, then, Mademoiselle the Quizzer, come and adorn my sketch.”

“Monsieur, shall I make you a confession?  You will not be angry:  I could not support your displeasure.  I have a strange inclination to walk up and down this terrace while you go and draw that tree in the Pleasaunce.”

“Resist that inclination; perhaps it will fly from you.”

“No; you fly from me, and draw.  I will rejoin you in a few minutes.”

“Thank you, I’m not so stupid.  You will step indoors directly.”

“Do you doubt my word, sir?” asked she haughtily.

He had learned to obey all her caprices; so he went and placed himself on the west side of the oak and took out his sketch-book, and worked zealously and rapidly.  He had done the outlines of the tree and was finishing in detail a part of the huge trunk, when his eyes were suddenly dazzled:  in the middle of the rugged bark, deformed here and there with great wart-like bosses, and wrinkled, seamed, and ploughed all over with age, burst a bit of variegated color; bright as a poppy on a dungeon wall, it glowed and glittered out through a large hole in the brown bark; it was Rose’s face peeping.  To our young lover’s eye how divine it shone!  None of the half tints of common flesh were there, but a thing all rose, lily, sapphire, and soul.  His pencil dropped, his mouth opened, he was downright dazzled by the glowing, bewitching face, sparkling with fun, in the gaunt tree.  Tell me, ladies, did she know, even at that age, the value of that sombre frame to her brightness?  The moment she found herself detected, the gaunt old tree rang musical with a crystal laugh, and out came the arch-dryad.  “I have been there all the time.  How solemn you looked!  Now for the result of such profound study.”  He showed her his work; she altered her tone.  “Oh, how clever!” she cried, “and how rapid!  What a facility you have!  Monsieur is an artist,” said she gravely; “I will be more respectful,” and she dropped him a low courtesy.  “Mind you promised it me,” she added sharply.

“You will accept it, then?”

“That I will, now it is worth having:  dear me, I never reckoned on that.  Finish it directly,” cried this peremptory young person.