the blending of them! Sometimes it was all he could do to keep himself from
crying out.

Tiki-pu, while he squatted and ground at the colour-powders, would listen to
his master lecturing to the students. He knew by heart the names of all the
painters and their schools, and the name of the great leader of them all who
had lived and passed from their midst more than three hundred years ago; he
knew that too, a name like the sound of the wind, Wio-wani: the big picture at
the end of the studio was by him.

That picture! To Tiki-pu it seemed worth all the rest of the world put
together. He knew, too, the story which was told of it, making it as holy to
his eyes as the tombs of his own ancestors. The apprentices joked over it,
calling it "Wio-wani's back-door," "Wio-wani's night-cap," and many other
nicknames; but Tiki-pu was quite sure, since the picture was so beautiful,
that the story must be true.

Wio-wani, at the end of a long life, had painted it; a garden full of trees
and sunlight, with high-standing flowers and green paths, and in their midst a
palace. "The place where I would like to rest," said Wio-wani, when it was
finished.

So beautiful was it then, that the Emperor himself had come to see it; and
gazing enviously at those peaceful walks, and the palace nestling among the
trees, had sighed and owned that he too would be glad of such a resting-place.
Then Wio-wani stepped into the picture, and walked away along a path till he
came, looking quite small and far-off, to a low door in the palace-wall.
Opening it, he turned and beckoned to the Emperor; but the Emperor did not
follow; so Wio-wani went in by himself, and shut the door between himself and
the world for ever.