Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/155

142 Though he criticized Miss Shaw's painting, had there not been remarkable promise, he would have passed it by unnoticed. From that day forward there was a tacit understanding that it was not necessary for either girl to say anything of the other's daily work. Hatty knew that in Elizabeth's benighted condition she could not possibly appreciate an impressionist's view of a model. And Elizabeth, on her side, felt that the opinion of a person whose optic nerve was so strangely constituted as Miss Baring's would be of no value, no help, to her. Her brother was a fine draughtsman, and his mastery over the brush was so remarkable that much was to be learned from him in mere "technique." It was not so with Hatty. Elizabeth said to herself, a little scornfully, that it was fraternal partiality which made Mr. Baring so lenient—often absolutely silent—about Hatty's work. He would stand over her easel for a minute or two, and perhaps point his finger to some flagrant fault in drawing, but he never dwelt at any length upon the defects. His severe criticism of Elizabeth's own work was, if she could have known it, the greatest compliment to her talent. She was worth severity. His attachment to his sister did not blind him to the fact that she could never paint well. But it amused her; it was not worth while to discourage her attempts. She was so frail; poor little woman, that he sometimes thought, with a heavy sigh, "She will go the way of our mother, but earlier. It little signifies how she paints—poor Hatty!"

Elizabeth's sitting-room was a harbour of refuge, where the girls always retired shortly after dinner, and where Mr. Baring never joined them. Sometimes, however, all