"Oh yes, if you'll promise not to fall in love with him for good."
When Roger presented himself at the appointed hour in his cousin's studio, he found that young lady very much in earnest and not at all disposed to regard her new functions as a jest. Roger, who had come expecting to be amused, found himself ignominiously set down at a table beside the amenable Tom (who had been coerced into joining the class) and directed to copy a very elementary representation of a gable of a cottage which the instructress had set up on the easel. Six times was he compelled to tackle this simple object before his copy was pronounced passable; and until that Rosalind sternly discouraged all conversation or inattention.
"Really, Roger," said she, when at last he meekly submitted his final copy, "for a boy of your age you are an uncommonly rough hand. Tom is a much more promising pupil than you."
"I haven't promised you a bob an hour, though," rejoined that not-to-be- flattered genius, beginning to whistle.
"Silence, sir!" said Miss Rosalind, stamping her little foot with something like temper; "as long as you are in my class you must do as I tell you."
"You're rather strict," said he. "I don't mind working hard and attending to all you say, but I vote we enjoy ourselves too--all three of us."
"You mean," said Rosalind petulantly, "that you come here to play, while I try to work."
"No, I don't. I come to do both, and I want you to, as well."
"Very well then, I withdraw from my engagement," said the young lady, with an ominous flush; "we don't agree about art. Unless you can give yourself up to it while you are about it, it's not meant for you--and-- and I'm very sorry indeed I made such a stupid mistake as to think you meant what you said when you told me you wanted to learn."
And she took the copy down from the easel.
"Look here, Rosalind," said Roger, in unusual perturbation, "I'm so sorry. You're quite right. Of course one can't do two things at once. I'll--"
"You're a dear boy, as I've said before," said Miss Oliphant, brightening up suddenly and accepting her victory serenely. "Now please both of you draw the picture again from memory as exactly as you can."
"What's the long and short of it all?" presently whispered Tom, who had been supremely indifferent to the argument. "Is it larks or no larks?"