wisdom to learn yet, my dear Fenwick. The women _must_ be flattered.'

Fenwick repeated that he was sorry if Miss Bella was disappointed,
but the tone was no less perfunctory than before. After stooping and
looking sharply for a moment into the picture--which was a strong,
ugly thing, with some passages of remarkable technique--he put it
aside, saving that he would send for it in the evening. Then, having
packed up and shouldered the rest of his painter's gear, he stood
ready to depart.

'I'm awfully obliged to you!' he said, holding out his hand.

Morrison looked at the handsome young fellow, the vivacity of the
eyes, the slight agitation of the lip.

'Don't mention it,' he said, with redoubled urbanity. 'It's my
way--only my way! When'll you be off?'

'Probably next week. I'll come and say good-bye.'

'I _must_ have a year! But Phoebe will take it hard.' John Fenwick had
paused on his way home, and was leaning over a gate beside a stream,
now thinking anxiously of his domestic affairs, and now steeped in
waves of delight--vague, sensuous, thrilling--that flowed from the
colours and forms around him. He found himself in an intricate and
lovely valley, through which lay his path to Langdale. On either side
of the stream, wooded or craggy fells, gashed with stone-quarries,
accompanied the windings of the water, now leaving room for a scanty
field or two, and now hemming in the river with close-piled rock and
tree. Before him rose a white Westmoreland farm, with its gabled porch