And the same with Eleanor's.

If he had got his birch-trees half as good as hers, and had then seen what a muddle the trees behind were in, I believe he would only have washed in a little blue and grey behind the birches, 'indicated' (as our old drawing-master at school calls it) a distant stem or two--and there would have been another clever sketch for you!" "Another clever falsehood, you mean," said Clement hotly, "to ruin people's taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and make them believe they can improve upon Nature's colouring." "Nature's colouring varies," said Jack.

"Distant trees often _are_ blue and grey, though these, just now, are of the rankest green." Clement replied, Jack responded, Clement retorted, and a fierce art-discussion raged the whole way home.
We were well used to it.

Indeed all conversations with us had a tendency to become controversial.

Over and above which there was truth in Keziah's saying, "The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave a body's head; and dear knows what it's all about." Clement finished a vehement and rather didactic confession of his art-faith as we climbed the steep hill to the Vicarage.