Meantime her beauty was undeniable, was overwhelming. Such hair and eyes Annie had dreamed of, but had never seen. She raved about them until Caterham declared she must puzzle her brain to find some excuse for his going to Elm Lodge to see this wonderful woman. She described Margaret to Lady Beauport, who was good enough to express a desire to see "the young person." She mentioned her to Algy Barford, who listened and then said, "Nice! nice! Caterham, dear old boy! you and I will take our slates and go up to--what's the name of the place?--to learn drawing. Must learn on slates, dear boy. Don't you recollect the house of our childhood with the singular perspective and an enormous amount of smoke, like wool, coming out of the chimneys? Must have been a brewery by the amount of smoke, by Jove! And the man in the cocked-hat, with no stomach to speak of, and both his arms very thin with round blobs at the end growing out of one side. Delicious reminiscences of one's childhood, by Jove!"
And then Annie took to sketching after-memory portraits of Margaret, first mere pencil outlines, then more elaborate shaded attempts and finally a water-colour reminiscence, which was anything but bad. This she showed to Lord Caterham, who was immensely pleased with it, and who insisted that Barford should see it. So one morning when that pleasantest of laughing philosophers was smoking his after-breakfast cigar (at about noon) in Caterham's room, mooning about amongst the nick-nacks, and trotting out his little scraps of news in his own odd quaint fashion, Annie, who had heard from Stephens of his arrival, came in, bringing the portrait with her.
"Enter, Miss Maurice!" said Algy; "always welcome, but more especially welcome when she brings some delicious little novelty, such as I see she now holds under her arm. What would the world be without novelty?--Shakespeare. At least, if that delightful person did not make that remark, it was simply because he forgot it; for it's just one of those sort of things which he put so nicely. And what is Miss Maurice's novelty?"
"O! it's no novelty at all, Mr. Barford. Only a sketch of Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow, of whom I spoke to you the other day. You recollect?"