"I'd wather sit on Cousin Antony's lap," said the little boy; "built-up books shake me off so, Bella."
Both children wore blue gingham play aprons. Fairfax told them they looked like real workmen in a real studio, with which idea they were much delighted.
"Gardiner looks like a charity child," said his sister, "in that apron, and his hair's too long. It ought to be cut, but I gave my solemn word of honour that I wouldn't cut it again."
"Why don't you go to your famous Buckingham barber?" asked the cousin.
"It's too far for Gardiner to walk," she returned, "and we have lost our last ten cents. Besides, it's thirty-five cents to get a hair-cut."
Fairfax had placed the boy before his drawing board, and confiscated a long piece of kitchen bread, telling Bella that less than a whole loaf was enough for an eraser, extracted the rubber from Gardiner's mouth, and sat down by the little boy's side.
"There's not much money in this house, Cousin Antony," Bella informed him when the séance opened. "Please let me use the soft pencils, will you? They slide like delicious velvet."
Fairfax made an equal division of the implements, avoiding a scene, and made Bella a straight line across the page.
"But any one can draw a straight line," said Bella, scornfully, "and I don't think they are very pretty."
"Don't you?" he answered; "the horizon is pretty, don't you think? And the horizon is a straight line."
"Yes, it is," said Gardiner, "the howizon is where the street cars fall over into the sunset."
"Gardiner's only six," said Bella, apologetically, "you mustn't expect much of him, Cousin Antony."
She curled over the table and bent her head and broke her pencils one by one, and Fairfax guided Gardiner's hand and watched the little girl. She was lightly and finely made. From under her short red skirt the pretty leg in its woollen stocking swung to and fro. There was a hole in the stocking heel, visible above the tiny, tiny slipper. Through the crude dark collar of the gingham apron came her dark head and its wild torrent of curling hair, wonderful hair, tangled and unkempt, curling roundly at the ends, and beneath the locks the curve of her cheek was like ivory. She was a Southern beauty--her little red mouth twisted awry over her drawing.