Kenelm Chillingly, Book 3.

e the Wandering Minstrel, and motioning Tom to do the same. "But you seem to add the ac

all Nature! ye

bent over the sketch-book. It is often difficult for one who is not himself an artist nor a connoisseur to judge whether the pencilled jottings in an impromptu sketch are by the hand of a professed master or a mere amateur. Kenelm was neither artist nor connoisseur, but the mere pencil-work seemed to him much what might be expected from any man with an accurate eye who had taken a certain number of lessons from a good drawing-master. I

very fine, but it is for a Turner or a Claude to treat

our sketch but one

ds. Hist! while I put

he upland, backed by rose-clouds gathered round the setting sun; below lay in confused outlines the great town. In the sketch those outlines seemed infinitely more confused, being only indicated by a few bol

closed his book, and turned round with a genial smile, "but at that distance, how can you distinguish the girl's face? How

nd as she came near me I spoke to her, and we soon made friends. She told me she was an orphan, and brought up by a very old man distantly related to her, who had been in some small trade and now lived in a crowded lane in the heart of the town. He was very kind to her, and being confined himself to the house by age or ailment he sent her out to play in the fiel

ing in Luscombe, find out this strange littl

but he looked hard at the minstrel, recognized the genial char

p into a ball. Suddenly she saw what I had done, and instead of scolding me for spoiling her pretty chains, which I richly deserved, was delighted to find I had tw

g face you have

ither; in fact, it is one of those patchworks which we call 'fancy heads,' and I meant it to

hear the

not bore yourself it

not. Tom, d

nging his head sheepishly, "and I s

paused a minute or so as if for recollection, and then, in the sweet clear tones and the rare purity of enunciation which characterized his uttera

-GIRL BY T

rossing in the

aid with her bask

o pass her choice

eart's-ease, courti

ins the he

jects t

life is

stop for

o grave, anoth

hothouse, that

re common in th

ost common least

London

e sale o

ns the hea

jects th

tly down, as do most people who recite their own verses, but unaffectedly think

tching than rhyming. Can you" (appealing to Ken

you compre

a whispe

not at all the sort of poetry now in fashion. I, however, expand his meaning, and by his flower-girl I understand any image of

at the same time; "but I have not expressed in words that which

how?" ask

he child stands on the brow of the green hill, with the city stretched in confused fragments below, and, thoughtless of pennies and pass

wer mutter, "Pardon me that remark of mine the other day about a beefsteak. But own th