Whitwell, when he came, attempted a larger view of the artist’s work, but apparently more out of kindness for him than admiration of the picture.  He said he presumed you could not always get a thing like that just right the first time, and that you had to keep trying till you did get it; but it paid in the end.  Jeff had stolen down from the house with his dog, drawn by the fascination which one we have injured always has for us; when Whitwell suddenly turned upon him and asked, jocularly, “What do you think, Jeff?” the boy could only kick his dog and drive it home, as a means of hiding his feelings.

He brought the teacher to see the picture the last Friday before the painter went away.  She was a cold-looking, austere girl, pretty enough, with eyes that wandered away from the young man, although Jeff used all his arts to make her feel at home in his presence.  She pretended to have merely stopped on her way up to see Mrs. Durgin, and she did not venture any comment on the painting; but, when Westover asked something about her school, she answered him promptly enough as to the number and ages and sexes of the school-children.  He ventured so far toward a joke with her as to ask if she had much trouble with such a tough subject as Jeff, and she said he could be good enough when he had a mind.  If he could get over his teasing, she said, with the air of reading him a lecture, she would not have anything to complain of; and Jeff looked ashamed, but rather of the praise than the blame.  His humiliation seemed complete when she said, finally:  “He’s a good scholar.”

On the Tuesday following, Westover meant to go.  It was the end of his third week, and it had brought him into September.  The weather since he had begun to paint Lion’s Head was perfect for his work; but, with the long drought, it had grown very warm.  Many trees now had flamed into crimson on the hill-slopes; the yellowing corn in the fields gave out a thin, dry sound as the delicate wind stirred the blades; but only the sounds and sights were autumnal.  The heat was oppressive at midday, and at night the cold had lost its edge.  There was no dew, and Mrs. Durgin sat out with Westover on the porch while he smoked a final pipe there.  She had come to join him for some fixed purpose, apparently, and she called to her boy, “You go to bed, Jeff,” as if she wished to be alone with Westover; the men folks were already in bed; he could hear them cough now and then.

“Mr. Westover,” the woman began, even as she swept her skirts forward before she sat down, “I want to ask you whether you would let that picture of yours go on part board?  I’ll give you back just as much as you say of this money.”

He looked round and saw that she had in the hand dropped in her lap the bills he had given her after supper.

“Why, I couldn’t, very well, Mrs. Durgin—­” he began.

“I presume you’ll think I’m foolish,” she pursued.  “But I do want that picture; I don’t know when I’ve ever wanted a thing more.  It’s just like Lion’s Head, the way I’ve seen it, day in and day out, every summer since I come here thirty-five years ago; it’s beautiful!”