Then, while the painter watched her, she stood silently looking at the picture.

Presently, she faced him, and, with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why don't you work?
How can you waste your time and this light, looking at me?
I shall go, if you don't come back to your picture, this minute." With a laugh, he obeyed.
For a moment, she watched him; then turned away; and he heard her moving about, down by the tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows.
Once, he paused and turned to look in her direction "What are you up to, now ?" he said.
"I shall be up to leaving you,"-- she retorted,--"if you look around, again." He promptly turned once more to his picture.
Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her creel and rod, where she could see the picture under the artist's brush.

"Does it bother, if I watch ?" she asked softly.
"No, indeed," he answered.

"It helps--that is, it helps when it is _you_ who watch." Which--to the painter's secret amazement--was a literal truth.
The gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not come right, ceased to trouble him, now.

Stimulated by her presence, he worked with a freedom and a sureness that was a delight.
When he could not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap.