Angela Brazil

A Fourth Form Friendship Angela Brazil

"TWO pencils, an india-rubber, a penknife, camp stool, easel, paint-box, a tube of Chinese white, apiece of sponge, paint rag, and water tin," said Aldred Laurence, checking each item off on herfingers. "Let me see! Can I possibly want anything else? It's so extremely aggravating to get to aplace and find you've left at home what you most particularly need. My block, of course! How couldI be so stupid as to forget it? It's no good taking pencils and paints if I've nothing to draw upon!""Hello, Aldred! What a spread!" exclaimed Keith, rousing himself from the luxuries of acomfortable chair and an absorbing book to notice that his sister had put on her hat, that her gloveslay on a chair, and that she was already beginning to pack some of the articles in question inside ahome-made portfolio of dark-green American cloth. "The table looks like an art repository!" hecontinued. "Have you suddenly turned into a Rubens, or a Raphael? Where are you going with allthose traps?"Aldred paused to count her paint brushes, fitted the spare tube of Chinese white into a vacantcorner of her paint-box, and slipped the penknife into her pocket."I want to make a sketch of old Mrs. Barker's cottage," she replied. "The clematis is out over theporch, and it looks lovely. I heard Mr. Bowden say yesterday that it was a splendid subject. Don'tyou remember, he made a picture of it last year?""So he did, and a jolly good one too. Yours won't be anything like up to that, Sis!""I dare say not, but you needn't discourage me from trying, at any rate.""Oh, I'm not discouraging you. Go by all means, and good luck to your efforts! You can show methe masterpiece when you come back;" and the boy, flinging his legs over one arm of the chair, settled himself in an even more inelegant and reposeful attitude than before, and plunged again intothe fascinating adventures of Captain Kettle. That, however, did not at all content his sister."I thought you were coming with me," she said reproachfully. "I was counting upon you to holdmy water tin while I painted."Keith detached his mind from tropical Africa with an effort."Then you counted without your host, my dear girl!" he responded. "I'm extremely comfortablehere, and I assure you I haven't the smallest intention of pounding half a mile down the dusty road, on a baking afternoon, to look at a picturesque cottage and act water-carrier when I get there