gratified if his landladies liked his pictures--which they often did.

"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!" Archer shouted.

Exasperated by the noise, yet loving children, Steele picked nervously
at the dark little coils on his palette.

"I saw your brother--I saw your brother," he said, nodding his head, as
Archer lagged past him, trailing his spade, and scowling at the old
gentleman in spectacles.

"Over there--by the rock," Steele muttered, with his brush between his
teeth, squeezing out raw sienna, and keeping his eyes fixed on Betty
Flanders's back.

"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!" shouted Archer, lagging on after a second.

The voice had an extraordinary sadness. Pure from all body, pure from
all passion, going out into the world, solitary, unanswered, breaking
against rocks--so it sounded.

Steele frowned; but was pleased by the effect of the black--it was just
THAT note which brought the rest together. "Ah, one may learn to paint
at fifty! There's Titian..." and so, having found the right tint, up he
looked and saw to his horror a cloud over the bay.

Mrs. Flanders rose, slapped her coat this side and that to get the sand
off, and picked up her black parasol.

The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black,