Page:Wiggin--Mother Carey's chickens.djvu/283

 "Ask to see her sketches when you are talking with her about her work some day," suggested Mother Carey. (Stab seven.) "As a matter of fact she probably gets her talent from you."

"From me!" Printed letters fail to register the amazement in Professor Lord's tone.

"Why not, when you consider her specialty?"

"What specialty?"

Really, a slender sword was of no use with this man; a bludgeon was the only instrument, yet it might wound, and she only wanted to prick. Had the creature never seen Olive sketching, nor noted her choice of subjects?

"She paints animals; paints nothing else, if she can help it; though she does fairly well with other things. Is it impossible that your study of zoölogy—your thought, your absorption for years and years, in the classification, the structure, the habits of animals—may have been stamped on your child's mind? She has an ardor equal to your own, only showing itself in a different manner. You may have passed on, in some mysterious way, your knowledge to Olive. She may have unconsciously blended it with some instinct for expression of her own, and it comes out in pictures. Look at this, Professor Lord. Olive gave it to me to-day."

They stood together at the gate leading out