you must come and sit with me on these afternoons, and we can be as
happy as possible together working and talking. Do you paint?'

'A little--in a schoolgirlish fashion kind of way.'

'Quite as well as I do, I daresay,' Miss Darrell answered, laughing
gaily, 'only you are more modest about it. O, here comes your
supper; may I sit with you while you eat it?'

'I shall be very glad if you will.'

'I hope you have brought Miss Crofton a good supper, Sarah,' she
went on in the same gay girlish way.--'Sarah is a very good creature,
you must know, Miss Crofton, though she seems a little grim to
strangers. That's only a way of hers: she _can_ smile, I assure you,
though you'd hardly think so.'

Sarah's hard-looking mouth expanded into a kind of grin at this.

'There's no getting over you, Miss Darrell,' she said; 'you've got
such a way of your own. I've brought Miss Crofton some cold beef;
but if she'd like a bit of pickle, I wouldn't mind going to ask cook
for it. Cold meat does eat a little dry without pickle.'

This 'bit of pickle' was evidently a concession in my favour made to
please Emily Darrell. I thanked Sarah, and told her that I would not
trouble her with a journey to the cook. I was faint and worn-out
with my day's pilgrimage, and had eaten very little since morning;
but the most epicurean repast ever prepared by a French chef would
have seemed so much dust and ashes to me that night; so I sat down