"I'll let you use my studio, if you will. I'd just love you to, now! Where
did you study?"

"Well, it was like this," said Miss Ingate with satisfaction. "It was a
long time ago. I finished painting a dog-kennel because the house-painter's
wife died and he had to go to her funeral, and the dog didn't like being
kept waiting. That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but
afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then I started on
portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah from memory. After she saw
it she tore up her will, and before I could get her into a good temper
again she married her third husband and she had to make a new will in
favour of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it would have
made any difference, I suppose, would it? After that I went into
miniatures. The same dog that I painted the kennel for ate up the best
miniature I ever did. It killed him. I put a cross over his grave in the
garden. All that made me see what a fool I'd been, and I exchanged my
painting things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be any good."

"You dear! You precious! You priceless!" cooed Nick. "I shall fix up my
second best easel for you to-morrow."

"Isn't she just too lovely!" Tommy murmured aside to Audrey.

"I not much understand," said Musa.

Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was moved to say, with
energy:

"What I want most is to learn French, and I'm going to begin to-morrow