The jutting group of birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably.

But when she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her very outline had begun to look less satisfactory.

When it came to colour--and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of _chiaroscuro_ to a subject already defective in point and contrast--Eleanor was almost in despair.
"Where's Jack ?" said I, after condoling with her.
"He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream to look for _algae_." At this moment Jack appeared.

He came slowly towards us, looking at something in his hand.
"Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor," said he, when he had reached us.
Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed in examining some water-weed in a dock-leaf.
"What is it ?" said we.
"It's a new species, I believe.

Look, Eleanor!" and he gave her the leaf and the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance.
My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but Eleanor was nearly as good a naturalist as her mother.