eyes. He grew thinner than ever: and no wonder, for he ate less and less, and went to bed in the small hours after supping unwholesomely, often off beer only. He smoked unmitigatedly; that is to say, he smoked when he was hungry or when he was thirsty, when he had eaten and when he had drunk, when he was warm and when he was cold, when he was busy or when he was idle. Mrs Cornford took him to task severely

for such reckless behaviour.

"Before I tried to waste myself to a skeleton," she said, "I would first see if there was no possibility of adding a stone of flesh to the little I possessed already. Finish that picture, take it to Blakesley, and go to Switzerland for a month with the money. If you don't, you'll catch cold the first foggy day that comes, and die before the winter is out."

"What matter if I do?" cried Perry, impatiently.

"But you shan't die, Perry, I can't allow it; I've other ideas about you. Now do set to work and earn lots of money; Kitty would marry you then."

"No, she wouldn't. She will marry that rich widower down there, and throw me over altogether."

"If she does that, she's a heartless, worldly woman, and I'll never lend her another sixpence."

"Don't abuse Kitty to me," Perry went on, painting away as he spoke; "it isn't because she is heartless or worldly that she does this thing or that thing; it is because she 's inclined to do it, and she can't help doing it. I do what I'm inclined to do; so do you; and it isn't our fault that we do what other people scold us for doing."

'Perry, you talk like a fool."

"And fools always speak the truth."

"But then there is no particular advantage in being a fool that I can see," Mrs Cornford said, coolly. "You are doing the very thing to make Kitty marry the widower; Kitty likes the good things of this world, and has set her face against marrying a poor man. You were always as poor as a churchmouse, but now you are making yourself as thin as the paper the church-mouse feeds on. Will Kitty like you better for

F

you

had a

Set about earning a little I'm one of the fair sex, as

being a tatterdemalion? Not she. She would marry you to-morrow, and you would live happy ever after, if few thousand pounds of your own.” "I know that well enough." "Don't sigh and look suicidal. money like a man. Look at me: fools say that is, I'm a woman. Haven't I worked like a man for nearly twenty years, supporting a sick husband, and a dozen helpless things I was fond of? I have ideas and an eye for colour, but no genius; and whilst I drudge away for days, copying models, and draperies, and furniture, you dash in a few colours, and turn out a picture that nobody else could have painted but yourself. If I were half as clever as you, I should not only be able to give my poor chicks bread and clothes, but should be able to make ladies of them."

"You are like all women," Perry said; "not having learned algebra, they are always meddling with unknown quantities. Of course you would do as you say if you were me, but then I am myself, and I do what it is my nature to do."

"Then you will lose Kitty Silver."

Perry's sallow cheeks flushed, and he spoke very eagerly— "Polly, don't speak as if it were my fault. If she returned quite the Kitty of other days, I could paint in a way that would astonish you; I know I could, and I should do it; but I cannot try to do anything without a spur in my side."

"I should think you had a spur in your side—and a pretty sharp one too," Mrs Cornford said, smiling.

"Do you think, then, that Kitty cares for me, and that she will come back to us?"

Mrs Cornford went to Perry's tobacco-box, put as much tobacco as would lie on her finger-nail into a bit of gauze paper, and, fixing her eyes on the wall, smoked and thought deliberately. When her modicum of tobacco had come to an end, she said

'My opinion about Kitty is just this, Perry: you could win her, if you only set about doing it in the right way. You know love isn't lord of all, and a clever woman like Kitty sees

more when she looks through a brick wall than most people do. A lazy bird is contented to catch one fly, but Kitty dives after all she sees; though you are a silly little fly, ready to jump down her throat, there are so many big ones she wants besides."

"Only tell me what to do, and I'll do it," Perry said, with a desperate inclination to lean upon somebody.

Firstly," Mrs Cornford said, "you must have your hair cut, buy a new suit of clothes, and wash your hands. Secondly, you must call upon Kitty, not looking at all as if you were uneasy, you know, but more as if you had found another Kitty elsewhere. Thirdly, you must get one of your friends to invite. you to stay at some country-house; and when installed there, write to Kitty how you are enjoying yourself, et cetera, et cetera." Perry groaned.

"If Kitty were only contented with me as I am," he said. "Then you wouldn't care a straw about her. It is just the woman who is discontented with a man, the man always wants to marry. If you would only fix your affections upon a dear little stupid creature, you would not have far to go. But my moddle is waiting all this time, and I really cannot talk longer. After all, you'll take your own advice; you can't make a donkey think that anything is better than his thistle."

Mrs Cornford and her "moddles," as she chose to call them, might alone furnish materials for a long story. Some one has written, that in painting you have only to carry on a friendly strife with Nature, but Mrs Cornford's painting was not of this peaceful and pleasurable kind. She had to contend with all sorts of intractable human tempers, from the beginning of a picture to the end: this model was irritable; that was troubled about a sick sister; one never kept appointments; another, who was a handsome creature, invariably looked ugly when you wanted her to be charming.

Then there were such minor difficulties as these: you want a lovely young creature with golden hair to personate Eve or Venus, but neither in Seven Dials nor in Belgravia are Eves and Venuses as thick as blackberries, and you have to content

yourself with hiring the amount of beauty you want by instalments-getting golden hair here, a pretty complexion there; a fine contour from a third, a beautiful throat and arm from a fourth, and so on. The process is tedious, but the result satisfactory. Mrs Cornford turned out beautiful things after this fashion, and lost temper less than most people would have done over her models. She rated them soundly for derelictions of duty, though in such a way that none ever took it amiss; and after extraordinary good behaviour, she rewarded them by cosy cups of tea, or little glasses of liqueur, a proceeding that set her on the pinnacle of favour.

Out of Mrs Cornford's dingy studio emerged such bright, sweet bits of colour, that they reminded one of beautiful butterflies cradled in dusky cocoons. Fashionable ladies who

saw them on the Academy walls, would never guess the history of those apparently fresh creations. "Oh, what a pretty ear!" "What lovely blue eyes!" "What sweet, babyish dimples!" such fair spectators would say, whilst looking at poor Polly Cornford's laboriously achieved pictures, never dreaming what these pretty ears, and blue eyes, and babyish dimples, had cost the artist. But Mrs Cornford made light of all difficulties, fortunately for herself, estimating her own capabilities at their worth. She knew that, much as she had done, she could do far more; that in her especial field she had hardly a rival; that by dint of study and training she might, by and by, be judged by the standard applied to men. She knew all this, and worked early and late with a steady purpose one would hardly have expected of her, judging from outward appearances. Her slow movements, portly person, and short, round hands, certainly indicated a phlegmatic temperament; and she was phlegmatic, except where her pictures and her charities were concerned. She was a sort of providence in her way, and seemed to look upon her earnings as the property of her invalid sister-in-law, her adopted aunts, and her three orphan nieces. Everybody belonging to her was made smart and comfortable with her money. She held herself responsible for the general enjoyment of cakes and ale, never feeling slighted

if she got the smallest share. When Kitty had sometimes urged upon her the necessity of buying a new bonnet, she would invariably say, "Oh! I must first think of my chicks!" and though they were not pretty, poetic children, and sometimes vexed her with fits of ingratitude and insubordination, she went on indulging them and loving them all the same.

CHAPTER X.

A SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY.

WHAT is there in the whole universe like a Sunday in the
country-so aristocratic, so peaceful, so good? Then, if ever,
the wheels of the earth seem resting, and it is possible to fancy
an existence without change. The rector and his daughters
walk under the arching elms, receiving all the homage of the
villagers in their Sunday clothes; the deaf old clerk stands
outside the porch gossiping with his neighbours as they pass;
idle little boys sit till the last moment under the shade, show-
ing each other marbles and pocket-knives; the bells are ringing
in the old sleepy strain; the surrounding landscape is flecked
with passing clouds; the wild honeysuckle scents the air; the
graves are bright with daisies and buttercups.
On the Sunday following
Cornford, he went down into
of his intentions to anybody.
to see Kitty, and to know his fate, as if fate and Kitty were
such simple things that they could be read in a day—nay, an
hour! He had no intention of presenting himself at Shelley
House, nor even of speaking with Kitty. He said to himself
that by seeing her he should be able to know how his chances
stood, and that was all he needed.

Perry's conversation with Mrs.
Kent without breathing a word
He was consumed with a desire

It was one of those perfect autumn days when all the heavens are purple, and all the earth is golden, and the air is balmier than in June. Perry, who was largely gifted with that exquisite sense of beauty, the artist's second nature, was not so