White Lilac | Page 9

formed a strong contrast to each other. Lilac's white face and
the faded colour of her dress matched the blossoms and leaves of the
cherry trees in their delicacy, while about the red-cheeked Agnetta
there was something firm and positive, which suggested the fruit which
would come later.
"I came--" gasped Lilac at last, "I ran--I thought I must tell you--"
"Well," said Agnetta, still staring at her in an unmoved manner, "you'd
better fetch your breath, and then you'll be able to tell me. Come and sit
down."
There was a bench under one of the trees near where she had been
feeding the ducks. The two girls sat down, and presently Lilac was able
to say: "Oh, Agnetta, the artist gentleman wants to put me in a picture!"
"Whatever do you mean, Lilac White?" was Agnetta's only reply. Her
slightly disapproving voice calmed Lilac's excitement a little.
"This is how it was," she continued more quietly. "You know he's
lodging at the `Three Bells?' and he comes an' sits at the bottom of our
hill an' paints all day."
"Of course I know," said Agnetta. "It's a poor sort of an object he's
copyin', too--Old Joe's tumble-down cottage. I peeped over his shoulder
t'other day--'taint much like."
"Well, I pass him every day comin' from school, and he always looks
up at me eager without sayin' nothing. But this morning he says, `Little
gal,' says he, `I want to put you into my picture.'"

"Lor'!" put in Agnetta, "whatever can he want to paint you for?"
"So I didn't say nothing," continued Lilac, "because he looked so hard
at me that I was skeert-like. So then he says very impatient, `Don't you
understand? I want you to come here in that frock and that bonnet in
your hand, and let me paint you, copy you, take your portrait. You run
and ask Mother.'"
"I never did!" exclaimed Agnetta, moved at last. "Whatever can he
want to do it for? An' that frock, an' that silly bonnet an' all! He must be
a crazy gentleman, I should say." She gave a short laugh, partly of
vexation.
"But that ain't all," continued Lilac; "just as I was turning to go he calls
after me, `What's yer name?' And when I told him he shouts out,
`What!' with his eyes hanging out ever so far."
"Well, I dare say he thought it was a silly-sounding sort of a name,"
observed Agnetta.
"He said it over and over to hisself, and laughed right out--`Lilac White!
White Lilac!' says he. `What a subjeck! What a name! Splendid!' An'
then he says to me quieter, `You're a very nice little girl indeed, and if
Mother will let you come I'll give you sixpence for every hour you
stand.' So then I went an' asked Mother, and she said yes, an' then I ran
all the way here to tell you."
Lilac looked round as she finished her wonderful story. Agnetta's eyes
were travelling slowly over her cousin's whole person, from her face
down to the thick, laced boots on her feet, and back again. "I can't mek
out," she said at length, "whatever it is that he wants to paint you for,
and dressed like that! Why, there ain't a mossel of colour about you!
Now, if you had my Sunday blue!"
"Oh, Agnetta!" exclaimed Lilac at the mention of such impossible
elegance.
"And," pursued Agnetta, "a few artificials in yer hair, like the ladies in

our Book of Beauty, that 'ud brighten you up a bit. Bella's got some red
roses with dewdrops on 'em, an' a caterpillar just like life. She'd lend
you 'em p'r'aps, an' I don't know but what I'd let you have my silver
locket just for once."
"I'm afraid he wouldn't like that," said Lilac dejectedly, "because he
said quite earnest, `Mind you bring the bonnet'."
She saw herself for a moment in the splendid attire Agnetta had
described, and gave a little sigh of longing.
"I must go back," she said, getting up suddenly, "Mother'll want me.
There's lots to do at home."
"I'll go with you a piece," said Agnetta; "we'll go through the farmyard
way so as I can leave the basin."
This was a longer way home for Lilac than across the fields, but she
never thought of disputing Agnetta's decision, and the cousins left the
orchard by another gate which led into the garden. It was not a very
tidy garden, and although some care had been bestowed on the
vegetables, the flowers were left to come up where they liked and how
they liked, and the grass plot near the house was rank and weedy.
Nevertheless it presented a gay and flourishing appearance with its
masses of polyanthus in full bloom, its tulips, and