A FORTUNATE TERM

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There had never been a week of worse weather, even for Whinburn, and that was saying something! Mavis, sitting up in bed with a dressing-jacket and two shawls round her and three comfortable pillows tucked at her back, could just see out of the window if she craned her neck a little. The prospect which greeted her was anything but pleasing—a wilderness of roofs covered with dirty snow, and a row of factory chimneys belching forth grimy smoke against a leaden sky. From the street came the noise of tram-cars and tramping feet; a motor-lorry, thundering by, shook the house like an earthquake. Mavis, in the blessed lull between two storms of coughing, turned her eyes resolutely from the forlorn view of the outside world to the cheery interior of the bedroom, with its glowing fire, its bookcase full of attractive volumes, and its walls so covered with framed prints, photos, and picture postcards that there hardly seemed a vacant inch of space left. Directly facing her, and in the place of honour, was a water-colour representing a landscape with a peep of the sea beyond. The trees in the painting were bare, but the undergrowth was green, and a patch of gorse blazed in the foreground, a rift of light from the sky gleamed on the waters of a stream, and the figure of a little girl was stooping to gather ferns. Mavis gazed at the picture for some time in silent contemplation, then:

"Muvvie, dear," she said suddenly, "I think you must have made a mistake when you told me you painted that in December."

Mrs. Ramsay, sitting with the mending-basket near the fire, snicked a piece of wool and put down the scissors.

"It's perfectly true, Madam Doubtful. Your mother doesn't tell fiblets. I sketched that in Devonshire the year before I was married. It was a milder winter even than usual, and I remember the gorse was in blossom at Christmas, and the laurustinus coming out in the gardens. I painted exactly what I saw, and no more. Can't you believe me?"

"Ye-e-s! But it's wonderful all the same. We don't get winters like that here in the north. When I look at the snow and the chimneys, and then at the picture, it's like peeping through another window into a different world. I only wish——"

But a severe gust of coughing interrupted Mavis's reflections, and when it was over she lay back, very quiet and white and exhausted, upon her three pillows.

Mrs. Ramsay, mixing a poultice by the fire, sighed as she stirred linseed meal into boiling water.