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CHAPTER III
"Truly … in respect … of itself it is a good life. In respect that it is solitary I like it very well, but in respect that it is private it is a very vile life.… As it is a spare life, look you, it suits my humour well."
As You Like It.
"Don't 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
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