from the sheaf in his hand, caught up a bit of yellow
ochre from his palette and touched up the shadow of
the birch. "All the women painters must be Margarets,"
he said to himself. Then he fell to wondering
what had become of her since the school closed.
He had always felt uncomfortable over the night
when he had defended "the red-headed girl in
blue gingham," as she was called by the students.
She had placed him in the wrong by misunderstanding
his reasons for serving her. The students
had always looked upon him after that as a quarrelsome
person, when he was only trying to protect
a woman from insult. He could not find it in his
heart to blame her, but he wished that it had not happened.
As these thoughts filled his mind he became
so absorbed that the children's good-by failed to
reach his ear.

That day Hank had brought him his luncheon--
two ears of hot corn in a tin bucket, four doughnuts
and an apple--the corn in the bottom of the bucket
and the doughnuts and apple on top. He could have
walked home for his midday meal, for he was within
sound of Samanthy's dinner-horn, but he liked it better
this way.

Leaving his easel standing in the road, he had
waved his hand in good-by to Hank, picked up the
bucket and had crept under the shadow of the bridge
to eat his luncheon. He had finished the corn,