'May I see that book?' He held out his hand, and Fenwick yielded it.

Watson and Cuningham turned it over together. The 'notes,' of which it
was full, showed great brilliancy and facility, an accurate eye, and a
very practised hand. They were the notes of a countryman artist
newly come to London. The sights, and tones, and distances of London
streets--the human beings, the vehicles, the horses--were all freshly
seen, as though under a glamour. Cuningham examined them with care.

'Is this the sort of thing you're going to do?' he said, looking
up, and involuntarily his eye glanced towards his own picture on the
distant easel.

Fenwick smiled.

'That's only for practice. I want to do big things--romantic
things--if I get the chance.'

'What a delightful subject!' said Cuningham, stooping suddenly over
the book.

Fenwick started, made a half-movement as though to reclaim his
property, and then withdrew his hand. Cuningham was looking at a
charcoal study of a cottage interior. The round table of rude black
oak was set for a meal, and a young woman was feeding a child in a
pinafore who sat in a high-chair. The sketch might have been a mere
piece of domestic prettiness; but the handling of it was so strong
and free that it became a significant, typical thing. It breathed
the North, a life rustic and withdrawn--the sweetness of home and