sheet was then covered with a spattering of ink from a tooth-brush
drawn along the tooth of a comb. When the process was completed, the
form of the loaf remained in the primitive colour of the card, thrown
out by the cloud of ink-spots, and only requiring a tracing of its
veins by a pen.

A space had been cleared for these operations on a side-table; and in
spite of the newspaper, on which the appliances were laid, and even
the comb and brush, there was no look of disarrangement or
untidiness.

"Oh, do--do show me how you do it!" cried Kate, who had had nothing
to do for months, with the dear delight of making a mess, except what
she could contrive with her paints.

And Lady Grace resumed a brown-holland apron and bib, and opening her
hands with a laugh, showed their black insides, then took up her
implements.

"Oh, do--do let me try," was Kate's next cry; "one little bit to show
Sylvia Wardour."

With one voice the three sisters protested that she had better not;
she was not properly equipped, and would ink herself all over. If
she would pin down a leaf upon the scrap she held up, Grace should
spatter it for her, and they would make it up into anything she
liked.

But this did not satisfy Kate at all; the pinning out of the leaf was
stupid work compared with the glory of making the ink fly. In vain