We had a week of hazy weather after this. I spent it chiefly in my study
and in Connie's room. A world of mist hung over the sea; it refused to hold
any communion with mortals. As if ill-tempered or unhappy, it folded itself
in its mantle and lay still.

What was it thinking about? All Nature is so full of meaning, that we
cannot help fancying sometimes that she knows her own meanings. She is
busy with every human mood in turn--sometimes with ten of them at
once--picturing our own inner world before us, that we may see, understand,
develop, reform it.

I was turning over some such thought in my mind one morning, when Dora
knocked at the door, saying that Mr. Percivale had called, and that mamma
was busy, and would I mind if she brought him up to the study.

"Not in the least, my dear," I answered; "I shall be very glad to see him."

"Not much of weather for your sacred craft, Percivale," I said as he
entered. "I suppose, if you were asked to make a sketch to-day, it would be
much the same as if a stupid woman were to ask you to take her portrait?"

"Not quite so bad as that," said Percivale.

"Surely the human face is more than nature."

"Nature is never stupid."

"The woman might be pretty."

"Nature is full of beauty in her worst moods; while the prettier such a