Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/24



stop working," begged Mrs. Kent. "I do so like to watch you."

Anne pushed the ruffle of her blue gingham painting-apron away from her face, and took up her brushes again. She was retouching, from memory, a study of an old sailor.

Mrs. Kent stooped to pat Miserere, the studio cat, then looked at the pictures on the walls,—an old woman, drinking tea; a white-haired man, warming his fingers over the last coals of his fire; a young Italian mother, with a brown baby in her arms.

"The things you do have an unusual charm for me," said the caller.

"Yet I am an utter failure, so far as 16