MISS Mason was sitting in her studio at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon. She was reading a small, red-covered book, within whose pages was enshrined a brief account of the life and work of Whistler.  
At intervals she looked up from her reading to glance round the studio and smile. It was her dream incarnate. She had waited forty-three years for its birth. She realized now that she had always wanted it, had always believed in it. All through the old days in the rose-beds, when she had pruned the trees, when she had grafted new buds, when she had watched the flowers expanding, she had dreamt of this studio. Only at moments it had looked real; generally it was far off and shadowy, but always it had been before her, and something had whispered to her heart, “Wait; one day it will come.”
 
And now it was no faint shadowy dream, but a living reality, and it would bring more glorious realities in its train. Nothing could be too wonderful to happen in the castle of her dreams.
 
Again she looked round the studio, and again she smiled. She would have liked to sing for happiness, only her voice was too gruff and cracked. She would have liked to dance for joy, only her old legs were too stiff. But she minded neither of these things, for her heart was beating to a little gay secret tune in which joy and thankfulness were woven in delicious harmony.
 
From behind the door that led to the tiny kitchen she heard murmured sounds and an occasional deep laugh. Sally’s scrappy little note had been answered by the appearance of Jim in his Sunday-best, shining from the washtub, redolent of yellow soap, every trace of his black weekday occupation removed. They were now cooing like a pair of young turtle-doves in a cage.
 
Suddenly Miss Mason was startled by a knock.
 
A moment later the door which led from the studio to the little vestibule opened, and Sally announced:
 
“Mr. Kirby and Mr. Oldfield.”
 
Miss Mason’s heart fluttered. It is an odd emotion, and now nearly out of fashion. It belonged to the days of “Cranford,” “Evelina,” and “Sense and Sensibility.” Now all emotions are big and passionate, or calm and well-controlled. There are few gentle excitements left.
 
In spite of the fluttering, Miss Mason rose to her feet, a quiet dignified old figure.
 
“I am very pleased to see you,” she said, and she gave them each her hand with the air of a queen. “Sally,” she said, “bring tea.”
 
She sat down again. There was a little pink flush in her cheeks. For forty-three years she had spoken to no man of her own class except the vicar and doctor. The interview with Mr. Davis being purely on business did not count.
 
Barnabas and Dan put their caps on the oak chest beside the Sèvres bowl which was filled with the pink roses with whose portraiture Miss Mason had so sadly failed. Then they sat down.
 
There was a moment’s pause. Even Barnabas’ mental picture of Miss Mason—a picture supplied by Sally’s unconscious imitation of her—had not quite come up to the quaintness of the reality. He felt that he had suddenly stepped back at least a century. There was about the atmosphere a hint of potpourri and long ago half-forgotten days that are laid up in lavender. There was a completeness about the whole thing—from the oak dresser with its blue plates, the Sèvres bowl and the pink roses, to the woman in her voluminous black dress, wide white collar, and abundant grey hair covered with the finest of old lace caps—a completeness that only an artist could fully realize, though most people would have felt.
 
She was so extraordinarily ugly too. No ordinary commonplace plainness of feature, but downright ugliness, yet without the smallest trace of repulsiveness in it. It was a fascinating [Pg 88]kind of ugliness, and the eyes in the ugly face—they alone were really beautiful—shone like bits of red-brown amber. It is a colour rarely seen.
 
Barnabas broke the silence.
 
“Your studio,” he said, “is charming. Dan and I watched the furniture coming in on Thursday morning. If it is not impertinent of me, may I congratulate you on it?”
 
“Glad you like it,” said Miss Mason. “It’s the first studio I’ve ever seen, but it’s the kind I always wanted. Have always pictured studios in my mind like this one.”
 
“You’re lucky in your mental images,” said Dan. “If you saw ours——” he broke off and shrugged his shoulders.
 
“But perhaps,” said Miss Mason anxiously, “yours is the real thing, and mine——”
 
“Yours,” said Barnabas, “is the dream to which we aspire, and to which we cannot achieve. When you see ours—and we hope you will honour us with your presence—yo............