"Oh!" breathed Billy, assured of the other's sanity, "you mean Old '61
practicing! That's the way he does--he's learning to march through
Georgia without the organ, but he misses a step or two sometimes.
_That_ was the picture, was it?"

"It was a beautiful one," Laura Ann said softly. "You needn't tell me
you can't paint, Billy! That's the kind of pictures we shall find
hanging in the Great Picture Gallery."

They walked on for a little in silence, with only the piping chorus of
the little night creatures in their ears. The sweet, cool damp was in
their faces.

"Here we are at Jane Cotton's Sam's," Billy whispered by and by, to
break the spell. She could not have told why she whispered.

"So we are. Billy, look, he's studying like a trooper! That boy is going
to walk straight into college in September! Let's go straight home and
hug Loraine--come on! Take hold of my hand, and we'll run."

"Wait--wait! Look, there's another of your pictures, Laura Ann!" Billy's
lips were close to the other's ear; Billy was pointing. Into the little
lighted room where Jane Cotton's Sam sat poring over a book, had come
another figure. As they looked, it stopped beside the boy and bent over
him.

"That's just the setting--all that," Laura Ann murmured. "The heart of
the picture is her face, Billy!" For Jane Cotton's face was radiant.