The record-union., 1899-09-10

much about art Miss Tomkins re-
marked, interrogatively.
Yes, little. / have knocked about
a great deal; and, nowadays, it is easy
TO grat1fy ones taste in almost any
direction
But it's not usual for men who paint
church doors and mend old forms to
have such tastes as you appear to
have
! Unfortunately not the vicar re-
pied. Yet the unusual does occur
Ii MISS Tomkins had been puzzled by
tne man Whom she found painting the
church door, she was much more puz-
zled at hndlng the mender of old
vestry-room forms lying on the grasA
by her side and talking like a scholar
and an artist. 1t happened that much
as she had heard about the new vicar
OF CroWSnest, she had never been led
| to think of him as doing manual labor.
1t is true she had been told that he
was personally active in the repairing
and the decorating of the church. She
had known many a curate who made
himself personally active in the dec
Grating OF churches for festival occa-
SlonS, put that was a work in which
ladies' = herself included - generally
joined. There was nothing in her ex-
perience to help her to associate the
famous vicar with the dirty paint
brush or the rusty saw. She concluded
that, as birds of a feather naturally
| flock together, the new vicar had at
tracted to himself congenially- mind
ed Workingman, who, either through an
innate FACULTY, or as the result of a
talent for imitation, had acquired the
tone and tastes that would naturally
mark the vicar himself.
On the morrow, Miss Tomkins, before
she established herself in the church
yard, drove to the vicarage in the hope
of getting an interview with the vicar
She was more than ever anxious to
see him; and it vexed her a little to
have to confess to herself that her spe-
cial reason now for desiring to see him
was to learn something about this
phenomenal painter-carpenter whose
conversation and ideas were those of
a man of culture and breeding.
But the vicar was never at home. He
was gone to the town, the woman told
her, to Robinson's. the Joiner about
for the vestry.
Shall ! find any one at the church ?"
Il think not. ma'am. The vicar has
taken with him the man who often
works for him at the church"
Miss Tomkins found the church silent
and empty. The two hours of sketching
were long and tedious; her colors would
not produce happy effects and the pic
ture as a whole was disappointing. The
Ipainter-carpenter was continually in
her mind. Every addition to the picture
was accompanied by the mental query,
What would he say about it?'' The con-
versation of the previous day was ever
ringing in her ears. She remembered
only too distinctly the tones and in
fexions of his voice and the changing
expression of his countenance She re-
membered noticing his crisp, curly
hair, and how the shirt sleeves and
apron failed to make him look like an
ordinary workman, but had a sugges-
tiveness that set her thinking of the
cricket field or the tennis lawn, where
shirt sleeves would be in character,
though an apron would be an absurd
ity. But he wore his apron with a
difference
1T is perfectly absurdl',' cried Miss
Tomkins rising from her camp stool
and pacing up and down the path. 81
can think of nothing but that singular
fellow! Any one who could read my
thoughts would say I was in love with
himi Who is he? What is he? If he