which reached Tessie's ears.

Nevertheless she promptly began: "That's it! Swear and act silly and ruin
your brushes! You have been three weeks on that study, and now look!
What's the good of ripping the canvas? What creatures artists are!"

I felt about as much ashamed as I usually did after such an outbreak, and
I turned the ruined canvas to the wall. Tessie helped me clean my
brushes, and then danced away to dress. From the screen she regaled me
with bits of advice concerning whole or partial loss of temper, until,
thinking, perhaps, I had been tormented sufficiently, she came out to
implore me to button her waist where she could not reach it on the
shoulder.

"Everything went wrong from the time you came back from the window and
talked about that horrid-looking man you saw in the churchyard," she
announced.

"Yes, he probably bewitched the picture," I said, yawning. I looked at my
watch.

"It's after six, I know," said Tessie, adjusting her hat before the
mirror.

"Yes," I replied, "I didn't mean to keep you so long." I leaned out of
the window but recoiled with disgust, for the young man with the pasty
face stood below in the churchyard. Tessie saw my gesture of disapproval
and leaned from the window.

"Is that the man you don't like?" she whispered.