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Rh such uprightness may be that there is so very little to steal. Come and look into this one!"

They advanced to the door, which stood wide open, mounted the low steps, and looked in.

"How charming! How delicious!" exclaimed Ethel enthusiastically.

Florence answered with a laugh of amiable derision.

"Where the charm and delightsomeness come in, I must say I do not pretend to see! An old room, with its low rafters stained black with smoke, and a long earthenware stovepipe running through it and threatening the life of those who pass under it!—an old stove surrounded by—I will admit—the brightest bits of copper, and brass, and tin that any housewife could boast—and a squatty little table piled up with carrots, and onions, and cab bages! You, I suppose, will be wanting to paint it next!"

"I want to paint it now, at once, this minute!" cried Ethel. "My fingers fairly itch. I want to paint those copper cans, and brass kettles, and iron pots with exactly this light upon them—and those vegetables, too! Oh, if I only could, while the impression is so fresh and strong upon me!"

"Well, so you can! you have only to fetch your easel and box and begin at once."

"But I have not got permission, and there is no one here to ask!"

"No matter at all about that! These peasants are the most amiable beings on earth. I have come to understand them very well. Go to work and do your picture, and I promise to make everything right when the family returns."

Urged by Florence, Ethel, who was really longing to make this picture, ran back to the little inn for her box and easel, and was soon at work, sketching in her picture rapidly, with an absorbed face, while Florence sat by her and watched its progress and prepared herself to explain things on the return of the family.

Ethel sat at her easel in the center of the old, low-roofed room, her scarlet cap fung on the floor beside her and her golden head shining tenderly under the smoky rafters. Her picture seemed to grow by magic, and as she brought out the brilliant polish of metal on the old vessels, and the soft bloom of vegetation upon