Summer was a riot of colour and blossom, and nowhere had the flowers a better chance than at Little Hemming, a veritable sun-trap in Surrey.

      The Manor House was a quaint red brick building, surrounded by a wilderness of garden which stretched to a border of forest trees. It was just the picturesque setting which Cecilie Cunningham's delicate beauty demanded. No wonder that other girls were jealous of her fresh youthful charm, and called her a butterfly with no aim in life beyond that of looking graceful, and wearing the most enviable clothes.

      She knew well enough she was considered a most helpless being, by more emancipated women, and for this very reason, though in no need of money, determined to lay and turn her artistic leanings into hard cash.

      To-day she sat in her pretty pink boudoir, with flushed cheeks and fast beating heart. Good Aunt Sarah had actually given her an order for a picture, just as if she were a professional painter, suggesting it should first be sent to an early autumn exhibition.

      "I leave the subject entirely to you," wrote this encouraging relation. "I should prefer something fanciful as a perpetual reminder of your dainty and pretty self."

      Having shown the letter to her parents with rapturous glee, Cecilie was now sitting in a kind of dream, thinking how best to fulfil the great work in hand.

      Every corner of the garden embodied a picture. Since her childhood the giant forest trees, low down by a brook on the south slope, made her think of fairyland, where gnomes and wondrous spirits played.

      Suddenly she blinked her eyes, wondering if she were really awake, for standing framed in the open window, which led to the terrace, was a slim boyish figure. Unlike other boys, the personality of this stranger was weird yet attractive. Poorly dressed in a thin blue jersey, he appeared in no way handicapped by the shabby clothes. His face of great wilfulness, had large wondering eyes and parted sensitive lips. He glanced into the room with the curiosity of some peeping hound, who expects his entrance to he routed by an indignant human. There was wonder and mystery about this boyish form. A cloud of red gold hair framed his curiously eager face, his neck was long and thin, and the outgrown jersey-sleeves showed the peculiar length of his hands.

      As his gaze met Cecilie's the hunted animal eyes kindled with an expression of glowing admiration. His stare was that of open child scrutiny, which unconsciously flatters and is innocent of offence.

      The girl sprang up, and the soft fluttering of her muslin skirt was light as the wing of a butterfly on the "Rose du Barri" carpet.

      "Who are you?" she asked kindly, moving forward. "What do you want here?"

      The boy tossed back his rough, tawny hair, and a confident smile showed that her friendly manner had dissipated shyness.

      "I was discovering!" he said, in a tone of intense earnestness. "I ought to have gone, out by the back door after leaving the eggs which I brought from mother; you buy her eggs every week. But I caught sight of all the colour this side, and I wanted to see. May I come into this room? May I look at everything?"

      His anxious desire to be admitted puzzled and rather amused Cecilie.

      "Oh, certainly," she replied. "This is my own little nest. How do you like it?"

      He did not answer at first, but, quickly accepting her invitation, wandered round the boudoir, his face radiant with silent ecstasy. He touched some embroidered cushions with the tip of a quivering finger, tracing the pattern and narrowing his eyes as he gazed at the softly blended shades. He stood on tiptoe to examine the china which ornamented the high mantelshelf, then turned with a little gasp to a tall vase of gigantic poppies with great black hearts, frowning from their scarlet leaves.

      "Of course, you purposely put them there against a white corner," he said, touching the long rough stalks, "because you love colour, too."

      Cecilie was quick enough to realize that here was a distinct temperament for art locked up in the soul of this child of the people. The boy stranger appeared as a wonderful discovery sent in answer to her wish. There, in flesh and blood, stood Aunt Sarah's picture, a boy with the head of a sprite, and a reedlike figure, which made her think of dancing daffodils in the wind. Evidently beautiful objects meant much to him, bringing a glow to his pale face, and a light of genius to those piercing eyes.

      "I suppose it is your holiday time now," Cecilie said, remembering the village schools were closed. "Will you come and sit to me for a picture? You can make more money that way than by selling eggs."

      The boy's rapturous admiration of the room could not compare with the evident satisfaction he felt when closely viewing the charming Miss Cunningham. Now he moved slowly round her, as though she were a piece of rare furniture, and he a connoisseur, there to examine its worth and beauty.

      "Of course I'll come," he cried, "but not because of the money, though that is what mother wants more than anything. I shall come here, shan't I, to this lovely place? I shall be able to see the colours every day."

      "Sit down," said Cecilie. "I must think the picture out."

      She flung herself into a low chair, and the boy obediently seated himself cross-legged on a large white hearthrug, by the flower-filled grate. He still stared at her, but now she paid no heed to the enquiring eyes as she continued:—

      "I will paint the wild wooded part of the garden, and you shall be Pan piping in an enchanted forest. You will be dressed in a leopard skin garment, and of course you must have goat's feet. There is a lovely old stump which shall make you a throne. You will be the personification of deity in creation. The character of 'Blameless Pan' indicates the immense variety of created things. My picture shall bear Milton's words from 'Paradise Lost.'

'Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces of the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal Spring.'

I must try and paint all the flowers round you dancing in motion, even the trees should seem to move a little. Atmosphere is the hardest part, but now I am a professional I must try and overcome difficulties. Only try and inspire, my brash, for I am sure you will make an enthusiastic model."

      The boy asked her many questions about the subject before leaving. Had Pan ever really lived, and must she kill a goat to get the feet? Might the flowers be made to look something like people, for all flowers had people's faces, really. Then she must please not forget the sunbeams, they would have to dance too. Heaps and heaps of colour would be wanted for her palette, if she meant to copy summer in the garden.

      "Oh!" remarked Cecilie in some surprise, "then you know something about painting, you have ideas too on the making of a picture."

      "There was an artist here in the spring called Mr. Hayden," replied the boy, his voice quivering suddenly, while his eyes blinked back unmistakable tears. "I used to follow him about and watch him work. His picture was in the Academy, he sent me a photograph of it afterwards."

      Before they parted Cecilie learnt that her model's name was Dick Wright, and his invalid mother made a scanty living out of her chicken farm. Dick had the care of the fowls and the carrying round of the eggs; in fact, he seemed to do everything for the ailing woman, who had been a widow many years.

      As Cecilie watched him go she noted his progress through the garden with interest. At every step he paused as though enchanted, standing in rapt silence by some blazing border of midsummer bloom, feasting his eyes on its glory, and inhaling the fragrance.

      At lunch she casually remarked she had engaged a model, having now thought out a scheme for her picture. She would have to send for the required canvas, and must order the boy's dress from a theatrical costumier.

      Her father, who dearly loved his only child, laughed softly as she left the room.

      "I am glad I put Sarah up to ordering that picture," he said. "It will keep Cecilie happy till Roderick comes home. I was afraid she would fret for him. Of course, I don't expect her to produce anything but an amateurish daub. Still, I do believe in girls being occupied; keeps them out of mischief; our little Cecilie is only made to play at work!"

·       ·       ·       ·       ·      ·

      Dick's days were full of joy now. He looked upon Miss Cunningham as some radiant vision from another world, the world of riches and splendour, which he had never known.

      She declined to let him see her canvas until the finishing touches had been given to this arduous task. Only, while working, she talked of the picture, describing her progress to the sitter, and whetting his appetite for a sight of this fairy scene.

      Dick loved his leopard's skin garments, and the beauty of the spot where the brook sang. In imagination he was verily Pan, a part of the elements, seldom losing the vivid expression of the Piper's face, or the keen tension of a body supposed to be half animal, half man.

      Sometimes he talked of Mr. Hayden's radiant canvas, which portrayed the Surrey landscape. Always Dick's reminiscences of the artist were tinged with sadness, and he would break off quickly, becoming suddenly reserved. Cecilie often forgot her model was just a village boy, and told this weird Pan quite intimate details of her own life.

      One day she spoke of her coming marriage with Roderick Morel.

      "I shall live in London then," she said. "I must make him provide me with a beautiful studio, and I may continue my work, and try to think I am still in the country."

      Pan, who seldom moved, shuffled his feet uneasily, and his face grew woe-begone, unlike the sprite of growing happiness.

      "The nice people always go away," he said, "they never stay at 'Little Hemming.' I might have known you would go, too, like Mr. Hayden. Mother says we must always expect disappointments. I thought that was only because her life is so unhappy. I hoped mine might be different: but of course, she was right."

      Cecilie smiled away his dreary forebodings.

      "You are too young for a pessimist," she said. "Some day you will go to London yourself, when you are old — like me."

      That morning the boy went sadly home to tell his mother she had called him a "pest," and soon she would go away, and make another disappointment.

      At last the looked-for date arrived, when the young artist told her model he might view the work in its completion. The weather was absolutely symbolical of the picture's intention. A soft warm breeze stirred the boughs overhead, flowers nodded in the grass, though summer had boldly advanced, there was something of spring in the playful wind.

      The boy was absolutely trembling with excitement, when presently Mies Cunningham stepped back, glanced at him invitingly, and cried in a joyful voice:—

      "Come and see!"

      Pan slid from the rugged stump, catching his breath, conscious that his pulses beat wildly like fluttering birds in cruel cages. He had dreamt of this wonderful colour creation that Cecilie was to give to the world, feverishly watching her face brighten and glow as she painted. The pretty, pensive attitudes in which she stood, when contemplating her work, were burnt in on his brain — vital impressions of an enchanted being. She deemed to him surrounded by magic charms, he liked to think Pan's sprites guided her hand.

      With a little quiver he darted across the grass whitened by daisies, to find himself face to face with a canvas whose back, had become so familiar from its poise on Cecilie's easel.

      He spoke no word at first, but just stood before the painting rigid and still, his eyes extended to their widest, his teeth set, and his fists clenched. Then a sudden sound broke from his lips like a gasping sob, and he flung back his head as if to toss aside the rolling tears which splashed to his cheeks.

      "Oh, Dick," half whispered Cecilie, "don't you — don't you like it?"

      He moved away a few steps as he had often seen Mr. Hayden move, though his vision was still clouded by the telltale moisture.

      "What's the matter with the trees?" he gasped. "You said they would rock and sing, and they are just dull pieces of paint: they don't move at all. The flowers, too, were to have fairy faces; we wanted them to hear the music, didn't we, since Pan played, for all he was worth? Even Pan is dead, his face is so wooden. Did mine look like that? You can't mean the picture is finished? You are playing some cruel joke on me!"

      Cecilie's blood, ran cold. Carried away by a fervour of purpose, she had never noticed till this moment that her canvas was lifeless, her colouring hard and crude, while Pan's face lacked any expression beyond that of a wooden image.

      "Oh! Dick, you are right," she murmured in painful accents — "what's wrong with the trees?"

      She turned her eyes to their living representatives, as if those forest kings could answer her appeal and the boy's despairing question. They only rocked their boughs jeeringly, and laughed in the wind.

      All Nature seemed mocking now at this raw amateur. Dick's passionate tears had given her the key to her own failure. Cecilie thought no more of Aunt Sarah, or the forthcoming exhibition; she was only conscious of her quivering model's misery and disappointment, mingled with her own shame.

      "Perhaps," she ventured to remark, "you could suggest something, Dick, to improve the picture."

      She gave him the lead diffidently, little guessing how quickly he would snatch at those desultory words. In a moment the old keen look returned to the boy's wonderfully bright eyes. To her amazement he accepted her suggestion as if it were an invitation to personal action.

      "Of course it could be improved," he cried joyously, seizing up her palette, and mixing the colours with a free, familiar hand — the hand which always appeared so uncannily long and expressive.

      In speechless surprise, Cecilie watched him dart at the canvas, after quickly collecting the brushes that suited his taste. With bold, impressionist strokes, he appeared to her almost to fling the colour on those stereotyped boughs. As he did so, they gradually took to themselves form, movement, life! They were no longer mere picture trees, his quick work revivified them, creating atmosphere. He was verily "Pan the Life Giver," while Cecilie gazed, in wonder at the supple form in its leopard's skin drapery, so intent on the canvas she called her own.

      "When did you learn to paint?" she asked curiously. "Why, Dick, you are a perfect genius!"

      "That is what the other painter said," he replied simply, as he turned his attention to Cecilie's grass and flowers. "Mr. Hayden gave me lessons every day. Shall I paint in my face, too? Fetch me a looking glass; I want to make it smile. I think I know the way."

      Still dazed with surprise, the girl ran to her boudoir, and brought back a large silver-framed mirror which stood on the piano. To see Dick work almost convinced her that reincarnation was possible. The boy had the soul of a Raphael. Glorious sunlight, poetic feeling crept into the picture over which he had wept. His work changed him from a humble admirer into one who commanded. He bade her hold up the glass that he might closely examine his features, and impress their wonderful reflection on the ground she had prepared. A little twist of the lips, a mere flick of paint, pursed them up into the real piping attitude. A dash of light, and a dark shadow beneath the eyes; gave them miraculous vitality. Still breathing quickly, he changed the lank dead hair into a living mass of waving gold.

      "That's just what it wanted, isn't it?" he cried, and the little laugh of glee that broke from his lips was light as the rippling of the brook at their feet.

      "Yes, indeed," answered Cecilie with sigh, "but now it is not my picture, the credit must all be yours."

      Dick clutched her sleeve in a frenzy of agitation. She could feel the trembling of those weird magnetic fingers, as he stamped his foot in rebellion.

      "No! no! no!" he cried. "I did it for you, only for you. We mustn't tell a soul. I've wanted to try and show my gratitude for all these happy days, oh! and for the money as well, which meant so much to mother. You see, it was the disappointment in the spring, which made her worse. Mr. Hayden told her, though I was so young, I could make my fortune. He promised to send me to London after the Royal Academy was opened, and she was to come too. He said I should, work with him in his studio; he called me 'his Michael Angelo, his discovery, his adopted son.' When the photograph came of his big picture he wrote he was looking out rooms for us, and three days afterwards we read of his sudden death, in the papers. Mother got ever so much, worse after that, and I felt I never wanted to paint again, or see another picture. It was only after I came into your garden one morning I began to think of beautiful colours again. You know what mother said about disappointments; please, please don't disappoint me now. Let me give you this little bit of work, for I feel just as if Mr. Hayden were here telling me what to do."

      Cecilie realised she was in the throes of a strong temptation. Of course, they were right, these people who called her a butterfly, and the critics who warned her she had better leave work alone. Here was a chance of surprising her parents, and enchanting Aunt Sarah, at the same time gratifying a child's earnest request.

      "Poor little Dick!" she murmured. "Fate was very hard, but though you have lost one friend, try and feel you have found another in me. If I allow this picture to pass as my own, I am not going to let the world lose a genius. When I am married, perhaps, I can make up to you for Mr. Hayden's loss."

      Dick had gone back to the canvas again, to add a fresh glow of glory to the sky.

      "It's colour," he said, "colour that makes life. Perhaps your picture will be exhibited after all. That is the kind of sky Mr. Hayden painted."

      When "Pan" danced home the richer for his love and service, Cecilie bore her picture with outward triumph to the parents who had been promised a sight of it that day. Inwardly her heart ached with a dull sense of failure, while their wondering praise, and admiring comments, were so many stabs lacerating her sensitive spirit.

      "I must say," declared Mr. Cunningham, "I had no idea Cecilie's work would show so much temperament and feeling. Such art as here should command a market. Roderick really thinks he is marrying a really clever artist."

      Mrs. Cunningham conventionally replied that marriage was supposed to kill genius, and the painting of pictures would soon be forgotten when trousseau-ing days began, to be followed by household cares, and the arduous task of furnishing.

      Together the parents marvelled at Cecilie's nature is one that can never be achievement.

      "Most girls," they concluded, "would be justly proud of such a canvas, but Cecilie's nature is one that can never be spoilt by success."

·       ·       ·       ·       ·      ·

      Summer had faded to the crimson and gold of early autumn. The old Manor House garden was a blaze of russet foliage, when Roderick Morel returned from Nigeria. Hardly had he entered the house, than Cecilie's parents poured into his ears the news of his fiancee's artistic triumph. They told of a poetical picture alive with atmosphere and feeling, which had taken front place in an autumn exhibition, receiving warm approbation from London critics. It bore that pleasing word "sold" in the corner of the frame, and was now on view for Roderick's inspection at Aunt Sarah's town house.

      During the lovers' separation, Roderick too had touched the golden shore of success. Though Mr. Cunningham was himself a rich man, it pleased him to know his daughter was to marry wealth. Roderick and Cecilie thought little of such worldly matters, as they wandered out alone to the solitude which reigned among the forest trees by the brook. Here they had bade each other good-bye, and on the very same spot he clasped her once more to his heart, pressing the quivering lips in a long passionate embrace.

      "Darling," he whispered, "you don't know what it means to hold you again, and hear your voice. It all looks so dream-like here, that I am afraid you will fade as those tantalizing visions which haunted me on my journey. Never a night passed but I came to you in spirit. All day the people around me were the phantoms, and the memory of you was the real presence. Your sweetness hung about me irresistibly. If I had come back to find you changed, I think it would have been my death blow. Yet, in a way, you are not the same Cecilie; you have joined a new sisterhood, now I must look on you as one of the clever women who 'do things.' I cannot grudge you your triumph, selfishly I could almost wish that love meant everything to you, and art nothing."

      The girl hung her head, and the colour mounted to her cheeks in a flush of shame.

      "I always meant to tell you immediately," she murmured, "though I couldn't tell the others; it would have made Dick so unhappy. I have felt dreadfully bad about the whole matter, and every word of praise has made me hate myself more bitterly."

      She paused, and Roderick's grip grew tighter with sudden tension.

      "Who is Dick," he gasped. The eyes which met Cecilie's were alight with genuine fear, and the first lurking flame of jealous agony.

      The girl nestled closer to reassure him.

      "Dick is only a little boy, but a wonderful boy, for all that," she replied reassuringly. "He is full of genius, the talent that cannot be taught. He sat as my model here, by this old tree. I chose the spot because it was our trysting place, and the stream seemed always saying your name, as it rippled over the pebbles. You must hear my whole story, and then you shall be my judge. Perhaps you won't love me so much — when you know all."

      Hardly pausing for breath she graphically described Dick's sudden appearance at her boudoir window on the very morning when Aunt Sarah sent that exciting commission. She painted a word picture of those glorious days in the wood, when Pan posed merrily, with so much purpose; she fancied she could almost near his piping. Cecilie did not spare herself in telling how her hopes of success rose high until that dark moment when Dick, tearful and horrified, asked in quivering accents what was wrong with the trees.

      "It wasn't only the trees he altered, but everything — everything," she added, making Roderick realize all the magic of the boy's brush, which Hayden, the artist, had recognised so thoroughly. Dick's pathetic story of a would-be benefactor's death ended Cecilie's confession. Her listener heaved a sigh of relief, one of those deep souled sighs more eloquent than words.

      "I am awfully glad you are not a genius," he candidly admitted. "I love you so much better as you are. But I should like to meet this marvellous boy, and see what could be made of him, if only in memory of Hayden, whose, works appeal to me in quite an extraordinary way. I have several in my possession, and had already bought, without your knowing, his last Academy picture of "Little Hemming" to put among your wedding presents. Perhaps I shall have the splendid chance of giving the world another Hayden, or possibly a far greater artist, since the dead man called this child his 'Michael Angelo.'"

      With their faces lighted by that strange radiance, which only Cupid can kindle, Roderick and Cecilie made their way across the fields to Mrs. Wright's cottage.

      Dick caught sight of their shadows on the grass, and ran to meet them, with some clucking hens at his heels, noisily demanding their evening meal. Roderick recognised at once the difference between this boy and others of his kind, the little fellow looked oddly ethereal with the rays of the sinking sun enveloping his figure. His bright, intelligent eyes were fixed only upon Cecilie, and he gave a start when Roderick addressed him.

      "I hear Mr. Hayden was your friend," said the man. "Miss Cunningham tells me he intended training you as an artist. In memory of him, and his art, I should like to fulfil the mission which death snatched from his hands. You shall come to London, and study painting, we want you to make your name."

      "Are you glad, Dick?" cried Cecilie, laying a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder, for she saw how he was trembling. "Like Dick Whittington of old, you must seek your fortune, and somehow I think you will find it very quickly."

      Dick tried to speak. He pressed his fist to his forehead, and opened, those strangely expressive lips, but no words came. Then suddenly he darted forward, and snatching Roderick's hand, kissed it violently.

      "That's all right," said Roderick with English reserve. "I'll go and see your mother. If success comes later, you can thank my wife!"