Fred had described it all to Oliver, and every night when Oliver came in from the hall, his eyes had wandered over the group of students in the hope of seeing the strange person. A girl studying art, or anything else for that matter, seemed to him to be as incongruous as for a boy to learn dress-making or for a woman to open a barber-shop. He knew her type, he said to himself: she would be thin and awkward, with an aggressive voice that would jar on the stillness of the room. And she would believe in the doctrines of Elizabeth Cady Stanton--a name never mentioned by his mother except apologetically and in a low voice--and when she became older she would address meetings and become conspicuous in church and have her name printed in the daily papers.
Our hero's mind was intent upon these phases of character always to be found, of course, in a girl who would unsex herself to the extent that Miss Grant had done, when one night a rich, full, well-modulated voice sounding over his shoulder said:
"Excuse me, but Mother Mulligan tells me that you are Mr. Horn, Fred Stone's friend. I want to thank you for taking care of my poor Juno. It was very good of you. I am Margaret Grant."
She had approached him without his seeing her.
He turned quickly to accost her and immediately lost so much of his breath that he could only stammer his thanks, and the hope that Juno still enjoyed the best of health. But the deep-brown eyes did not waver after acknowledging his reply, nor did the smile about the mouth relax.
"And I'm so glad you've come at last," she went on. "Fred has told me how you wanted to draw and couldn't. I know something myself of what it is to hunger after a thing and not get it."
He was on his feet now, the bit of charcoal still between his fingers, his shirt-cuff rolled back to give his hand more freedom. His senses were coming back, too, and there was buoyancy as well as youth in his face.
"Yes, I do love it," said Oliver, and his eyes wandered over her wonderful hair that looked like brown gold illumined by slants of sunshine, and then rested for an instant on her eyes. "I drew with old Mr. Crocker at home, but we only had one cast, just the head of the Milo, and I was the only pupil. Here everything helps me. What are you at work on, Miss Grant?"
"I'm doing the Milo, too; my seat is right in front of yours. Oh! what a good beginning," and she bent over his drawing-board. "Why, this can't be your first week," and she scanned it closely.
"One minute--a little too full under the chin, isn't it?" She picked up a piece of chalk, and pointed to the shaded lines, looking first with half-closed eyes at the full-sized cast before them, and then at the drawing.
"Yes, I think you're right," said Oliver, studying the cast also with half-closed eyes. "How will that do?" and he smudged the shadow with his finger-tip.
"Just right," she answered. "How well you have the character of the face. Isn't she lovely!--I know of nothing so beautiful. There is such a queenly, womanly, self-poised simplicity about her."
Oliver thought so too, and said so with his eyes, only it was of a face framed in brown-gold that he was thinking and not of one of white plaster. He was touched too by the delicate way in which she had commended his drawings. It was the "woman" in her that pleased him, just as it had been in Sue--that subtle, dominating influence which our fine gentleman could never resist.
He shifted his stool a little to one side so that he could see her the better unobserved while she was arranging her seat and propping up her board. He noticed that, although her face was tanned by the weather, her head was set on a neck of singular whiteness.
Underneath, where the back hair was tucked up, his eye caught some delicate filmy curls which softened the line between her throat and head and shone in the light like threads of gold. The shoulders sloped and the whole fulness of her figure tapered to a waist firmly held by a leather belt. A wholesome girl, he thought to himself, and good to look at, and with a certain rhythmic grace about her movements.
Her crowning glory, though, was her hair, which was parted over her forehead and caught in a simple twist behind. As the light fell upon it he observed again how full it was of varying tones like those found in the crinklings of a satin gown--yellow-gold one minute and dark brown the next. Oliver wondered how long this marvellous hair might be, and whether it would reach to the floor if it should burst its fastenings and whether Sir Peter Lely would have loved it too could he have seen this flood of gold bathing her brow and shoulders.
He found it delightful to work within a few feet of her, silent as they had to be, for much talking was discountenanced by the professor: often hours passed without any sound being heard in the room but that of the scraping of the chairs on the bare floor or the shifting of an easel.
Two or three times during the evening the old professor emerged from his room and overlooked his drawing, patiently pointing out the defects and as patiently correcting them. He was evidently impressed with Oliver's progress, for he remarked to Miss Grant, in a low voice:
"The new student draws well--he is doing first-rate," and passed on. Oliver caught the expression of satisfaction on the professor's face and interpreted it as in some way applying to his work, although he did not catch the words.
The old man rarely had to criticise Margaret's work. The suggestions made to her came oftener from the students than from the professor himself or any one of the visiting critics. In these criticisms, not only of her own work but of the others, everyone took part, each leaving his stool and helping in the discussion, when the work of the night was over.
