at his studio with her sketches. Mr. Hoskin's studio was near the
King's Road, the last of a row of red houses, with gables, cross-
beams, and palings. He was a good-looking, blond man, somewhat
inclined to the poetical and melancholy type; his hair bristled, and
he wore a close-cut red beard; the moustache was long and silky; there
was a gentle, pathetic look in his pale blue eyes; and a slight
hesitation of speech, an inability to express himself in words,
created a passing impression of a rather foolish, tiresome person. But
beneath this exterior there lay a deep, true nature, which found
expression in twilit landscapes, the tenderness of cottage lights in
the gloaming, vague silhouettes, and vague skies and fields. Ralph
Hoskin was very poor: his pathetic pictures did not find many
purchasers, and he lived principally by teaching.

But he had not given Mildred her fourth lesson in landscape painting
when he received an advantageous offer to copy two pictures by Turner
in the National Gallery. Would it be convenient to her to take her
lesson on Friday instead of on Thursday? She listened to him, her eyes
wide open, and then in her little allusive way suggested that she
would like to copy something. She might as well take her lesson in the
National Gallery as in Sutton. Besides, he would be able to take her
round the gallery and explain the merits of the pictures.

She was anxious to get away from Sutton, and the prospect of long days
spent in London pleased her, and on the following Thursday Harold took
her up to London by the ten minutes past nine. For the first time she
found something romantic in that train. They drove from Victoria in a.
hansom. Mr. Hoskin was waiting for her on the steps of the National
Gallery.