"Good, bad, or indifferent," she said, "the pupil's sketches must
pass through the fiery ordeal of the master's judgment--and
there's an end of it. Suppose we take them with us in the
carriage, Laura, and let Mr. Hartright see them, for the first
time, under circumstances of perpetual jolting and interruption?
If we can only confuse him all through the drive, between Nature
as it is, when he looks up at the view, and Nature as it is not
when he looks down again at our sketch-books, we shall drive him
into the last desperate refuge of paying us compliments, and shall
slip through his professional fingers with our pet feathers of
vanity all unruffled."

"I hope Mr. Hartright will pay ME no compliments," said Miss
Fairlie, as we all left the summer-house.

"May I venture to inquire why you express that hope?" I asked.

"Because I shall believe all that you say to me," she answered
simply.

In those few words she unconsciously gave me the key to her whole
character: to that generous trust in others which, in her nature,
grew innocently out of the sense of her own truth. I only knew it
intuitively then. I know it by experience now.

We merely waited to rouse good Mrs. Vesey from the place which she
still occupied at the deserted luncheon-table, before we entered
the open carriage for our promised drive. The old lady and Miss
Halcombe occupied the back seat, and Miss Fairlie and I sat
together in front, with the sketch-book open between us, fairly