Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/143

 told her. "Some day, when I have more time, maybe I really can do something."

At present he was in the vacuum-cleaner factory, dreamy, impractical, working hard. But some day

Charlotte and Hoagland brought home large albums of Hoagland's neatly pasted snapshots, each labeled clearly in white ink—"Sunshine and shadow in Old Carcassonne," "Young Citizens of Old Hyères," or "Old Inn at Clovelly; Excellent Pork Pie." Hoagland had carried a heavy elaborate camera wherever they went, and used it seriously, often asking Charlotte to step to one side so as not to spoil the pictures. It was so easy to spoil a picture. He still thought with regret of that study of old house walls, curving cobbled street, and fig trees that had been spoiled by a pair of drawers hung to dry from a window that came bang in the middle of the composition.

Kate looked at snapshots and snapshots and snapshots, setting a trembling jaw against yawns, her eyes filling with tears. The big leaves turned slowly, slowly. "We wanted to share our good times with the rest of you," Charlotte explained, brightly.

"Here's a rather nice snap of a thatched cottage near Watersmeet."

"Oh, I thought that one was in Lynmouth, dear."

"No, this was Watersmeet. Don't you remember the day we went to that little place for tea?"

"Oh, the day you had too much clotted cream?