‘I am much obliged to you for your good opinion, Forrester,’ said Laurie; ‘it is very kind of you to take so much interest in me.’

‘I’ve been among painters all my days,’ said Forrester. ‘I sat to Opie, sir, though you wouldn’t think it, when I was a lad. I don’t know as there is a man living as understands ’em better nor I do. I knows their ways; and if I don’t know a picture when I sees one, who should, Mr. Renton? I’ve been about ’em since I was a lad o’ fifteen, and awful fond o’ them, like as they was living creatures,—and a man ain’t worth much if he don’t form no opinion of his own in five-and-forty years. Me and master goes on the same principle. It’s the first sketch as he’s always mad about. “Take the big picture and hang it in your big galleries,” he says, “and give me the sketch with the first fire into it, and the invention.” I’ve heard him a saying of that scores of times; and them’s my sentiments to a tee. But master, he’s all for the hantique, and me, I go in for the modern school. There’s more natur’ in it, to my way of thinking. You’ve got something on your easel, sir, as looks important,’ Forrester continued, edging his way with curious looks towards the central object in the room.

‘I don’t know if I should let you see it.’ said Laurie; ‘I have only just begun to put it on the canvas; and you are an alarming critic, Forrester,—as awful as Mr. Welby himself.’

‘No, sir; no, no,’ said Forrester, affably; ‘don’t you be frightened; I know how to make allowances for a beginner. We must all make a beginning, bless you, one time or other. Master ’ud grieve if he see a big canvas like that. He’d say, “It’s just like them boys;” but I ain’t one to set a young gentleman down. Encourage the young, and tell your mind to the hold, that’s my motto, sir,’ the old man said, as he placed himself in front of the easel. As for poor Laurie, the fact is that he grew cold with fright and expectation as he watched the face of the critic. Forrester gave vent to a prolonged Ah! accompanied by a slight expressive shrug when he took his first look of the canvas, and for several moments he made no further observation. To Laurie, standing behind him in suspense, the white chalk shadows seemed to twist and distort themselves, and put all their limbs out of joint, in pure perversity, under this first awful critical gaze.

‘If I might make so bold, sir,’ said Forrester, mildly, ‘what is the subject of the picture, Mr. Renton?’ which was not an encouraging remark.

‘Of course I ought to have told you,’ cried Laurie, very red and hot. ‘It is an incident after the Battle of Hastings,—Edith looking for the body of Harold. Edith, you know, was——’

‘I’ve seen a many Hediths,’ said Forrester. ‘I ought to know. I’m an old stupid, sir, not to have seen what it was; but being as it’s in the chalk, and me not having the time to study it as I could wish——. I don’t doubt, Mr. Renton, as it’s a fine subject. It did ought to be, seeing the many times as it’s been took.’

‘I don’t think I have seen it many times,’ said Laurie, profoundly startled; ‘I only remember one picture, and that very bad,’ the young man added hastily. Forrester shook his head.

‘Not in the exhibitions, I daresay, sir,’ said the critic, solemnly; ‘but there’s a many pictures, Mr. Renton, as never get as far as the Academy. Mr. Suffolk, he did it, sir, for one; and young Mr. Warleigh, as has give up art, and gone off a engineering; and Robinson, as has fallen into the portrait line,’ Forrester continued, counting on his fingers; ‘and poor Mr. Tinto, as died in Italy; and there’s the same subject,’ the old man added, solemnly, after a pause, ‘turned with its face again the wall in our hattic, as Mr. Severn hisself, sir, did when he was young.’

Laurie was overwhelmed. He gazed at the ruthless destroyer of his dreams with a certain terror. ‘Good heavens, I had no idea!’ said the young man, growing green with sudden despair. Then, however, his pride came to his aid. ‘It’s a dreadful list,’ he said; ‘but, you perceive, as they never came under the public eye, and nobody was the wiser——’

‘To be sure, sir—to be sure,’ said Forrester, with pitying complacency. ‘A many failures ain’t what you may call a reason for your failing as is a new hand. I hope it’ll be just the contrary; but if you hadn’t a begun of it, Mr. Renton,—and being as it’s but in the chalk, it ain’t to call begun;——couldn’t Hedith be a looking out for her lover, sir, of an evening, as young women has a way? I don’t suppose there was no difference in them old times. And a bit o’ nice sunset, and him a-coming out of it with his shadow in front of him, like. I don’t say as the subject’s as grand, but it’s a deal cheerfuller. And when you come to think of it, Mr. Renton, to hang up all them dead corpses and a skeered woman, say, in your dining-room, sir, when it’s cheerful as you want to be——’

‘Thanks,’ said Laurie, with a little offence. ‘I have no doubt you are very judicious, but I am sorry I can’t see the matter in the same light. You will give Mr. Welby my compliments, please. I’ll be glad to dine with him on Saturday, as he asks me. Perhaps you will be so good as to say nothing—. But no, that’s of no consequence,’ Laurie added, hastily. Of course he was not going to give in. Of course they must know sooner or later what he was doing, and better sooner than later. They might laugh, or sneer, or consider him childish if they pleased; but the moment his picture was hung on the line in the Academy, all that would be changed. So Laurie mounted his high horse. But he did it in a splendid, magnanimous sort of way. He smoothed down Forrester’s wounded feelings by a ‘tip,’ which, indeed, was more than he could afford, and which the old man took with reluctance,—and opened the door for him with his own hands. ‘Offended! because you tell me how popular my subject has been? Most certainly not! Much obliged to you, on the contrary, Forrester, and very proud of your good opinion,’ he said, with a most gracious smile and nod, as his critic went away, which Forrester did with a certain satisfaction mingling with his regret.

‘It’s for his good,’ the old man said to himself; ‘and there ain’t no way of doing them young fellows good without hurting of their feelings.’

Laurie for his part went back to his painting-room, and sat down moodily before his big canvas. It was too ridiculous to care for such a piece of criticism. Forrester;—Mr. Welby’s servant!—to think of minding anything that a stupid old fellow in his dotage might venture to say! Laurie laughed what he meant for a mocking laugh, and then bit his lip and called himself a fool. Of course the old rascal had been crammed beforehand and taught what to say; or if not, at least it was no wonder if the servant repeated what the master thought. It was not this picture or that, but every picture that Welby had set his face against. And what a piece of idiocy to show his man, his echo,—the very first beginning,—the most chaotic indication,—such as none but an eye at once keen and indulgent could have made out,—of the great work that was to be! Laurie concluded proudly that nobody was to blame but himself, as he sat down in his first quiver of mortification, half inclined to tear his canvas across, and pitch his chalks to the other end of the room. Then he looked at it, and found his Edith looking down upon him with her tragic eyes,—eyes which to her creator looked tragic and full of awful meaning, though they were but put in in chalk. Perhaps, indeed, it was the chalk that made her divine in her despair, whitely shadowing out of the white canvas, owing everything to the imagination,—a suggestion of horror and frantic grief and misery. What if it was a common subject! The more common a thing is, the more universal and all-influencing must it be. A tender woman, made sublime by her despair, seeking on a field of battle the body of the man she loved most,—a thing of primitive passion such as must move all humanity. What if it were hackneyed! All the more distinctly would it be apparent which was the touch of the real power which could embody the scene, and which the mere painter of costumed figures. Such were Laurie’s thoughts as he sat, discouraged and cast down, before his picture,—poor fellow!—after Forrester’s visit. If the man’s criticisms had so much effect upon him, what would the master’s have had? What could he have said to the padrona had it been she who had come to look at his picture? Then the long array of names which Forrester had quoted came back upon him. In short, poor Laurie had received a downright unexpected blow, and ached and smarted under it, as was natural to a sensitive being loving applause and approbation. He turned his back on Edith for the rest of the day, throwing open his windows, to Miss Hadley’s astonishment, the first time for a week, and affording her a dim vision of a figure thrown into an arm-chair by the fire, with a novel. It was the first time since he came to Charlotte Street that he had in broad daylight and cold blood given himself over to such an indulgence. He was disgusted with his work and himself. He had not the heart to go out. He could not go to the Square, where probably by this time they were all laughing over his folly. He read his novel doggedly all the afternoon, in sight of Miss Hadley, who could not tell what to make of it. The light was gone and the day lost before he roused himself, and pitched his book into the farthest corner. His kindly spy could not tell what the perverse young fellow would do next. Probably go and have his dinner, she said to herself; which, indeed, Laurie did; and came home much better, beginning to be able to laugh at Forrester, and snap his fingers at his predecessors. ‘The more reason it should be done now,’ he said to himself, ‘if Suffolk, and Severn, and all those fellows broke down over it.’ And he suffered a little gleam of self-complacency to steal over his face, and went to work all night at his sketch, to improve and perfect the composition. So that, on the whole, Laurie, though no genius, had that nobler quality of genius which overcomes all criticism and surmounts every discouragement. He had been shut up long enough in silence with his conception. That day, he made up his mind, instead of permitting himself to be ignominiously snubbed by old Forrester, that he would face the world, and carry the sketch which he was completing to the padrona herself.

CHAPTER XXI.

WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF IT IN THE SQUARE.

‘God bless me! you don’t mean to say the young fellow has got married?’ said Mr. Welby, with agitation; for his interest in Laurie was great.

‘No, sir,’ said Forrester, ‘worse nor that. Marrying’s a lottery, but sometimes a wife’s a help. You may shake your head, sir; but sometimes she’s a help. It’s more nor that; but I won’t keep you no longer in misery. That young gentleman, sir, as you take an interest in, and I take an interest in, and the good lady up-stairs, though he’s been well-instructed and had all our advice, and ain’t an idiot, not to speak of, in other things, he’s been and took up the Saxon line. I see, with my own eyes, a sketch of that ere blessed Hedith as is always a seeking somebody’s body. He’s got it stuck up on a big canvas six by ten, sir; you take my word; and you know what that comes to as well as me.’

‘Bless my soul!’ said Mr. Welby; and though his emotion took a different form, it was quite as genuine as Forrester’s outspoken despair. He took a few turns through his studio, repeating this disclosure to himself. ‘The Saxon line!’ he said with horror. ‘Infatuated boy! When a young man is thus bent on destroying himself, what can any one do?’ ‘You are sure you are making no mistake?’ said the R.A.; ‘it was not some other fellow’s canvas that had been left in his place? And what did you say to him? After all the trouble we’ve taken! I will never interest myself in any young man again,’ said Mr. Welby, with effusion, ‘not if I should live a hundred years!’

‘What did I say, sir?’ said Forrester. ‘I told him plain where he was going to; to destruction. I gave him a piece of my mind, sir. I spoke to him that clear as he couldn’t make no mistake. I told him the times and times I’ve seen it done, and what followed. I counted ’em over to him,—Mr. Suffolk, and young Mr. Warleigh, and——’

‘Then you behaved like an ass,’ cried the R.A., with indignation. ‘Suffolk! the cleverest painter he knows. Why, there’s not a man among us can hold the candle to Suffolk for some things! Why didn’t you tell him of Baxter, and Robinson, and Simpson, and half-a-dozen other young fools like himself? Suffolk! A man of genius! I thought you had more sense.’

‘He may be a bit of a genius,’ said Forrester, standing his ground; ‘but he don’t sell his pictures, and Mr. Renton knows it. He was struck all of a heap, sir, when he’d heard all I’d got to say. I don’t approve of the subject, nor I don’t approve of the size; but as far as I could judge of the chalk, it wasn’t badly put on. I wouldn’t say he’s a genius, but he’s got a way, has Mr. Renton; and always a nice-spoken, civil gentleman, even when he’s put out a bit, as he might have been to-day.’

‘Pshaw!’ said the master; ‘that means, I suppose, that he did not kick you down-stairs. Foolish boy! after all I said to him. I daresay some of the women have put it into his head to go and distinguish himself. Go up and give my compliments to Mrs. Severn, and I’d like to speak to her if she is not busy; and mind you don’t say a word of this. Don’t speak of it anywhere. I hope what you’ve said to him, and what I shall say to him, will bring him to his senses. Don’t say a word about it to any soul.’

‘I’ve been trusted with greater secrets,’ said Forrester, with dignity. ‘He’ll tell her, sir, as fast as look at her; and he’ll build more on her advice, though she don’t know half nor a quarter. I’m a going, sir. He thinks a deal more of what she says than of either you or me.’

‘Insufferable old bore!’ Mr. Welby said to himself. ‘Outrageous young ass! It must be those silly women that have bidden him go and distinguish himself. And what have I got to do with it, I’d like to know?’ The truth was the Academician had begun to take a greater interest in Laurie than was consistent with his principles; and he wanted to blame somebody for his favourite’s rebellion. He put down his palette, for he was at work at the moment, and washed his hands, and prepared for the interview he had asked. Perhaps Mr. Welby was doubly ceremonious as a kind of protest against the ease with which other members of the profession penetrated into the padrona’s studio.

‘A lady is a lady, however she may be occupied,’ the old man said. And, in accordance with this principle, Forrester’s mien and voice were very solemn when he made his appearance up-stairs. ‘Master’s compliments, ma’am, and if you’re not busy he’d like to speak to you,’ he said, standing ceremoniously at the door.

‘Mr. Welby, Forrester?’ said the padrona. ‘Oh, surely; I shall be glad to see him. I hope there’s nothing the matter. Come in and tell me what you think of this. I hope there’s nothing wrong.’

‘No, ma’am; not as I knows of,’ said Forrester, with profound gravity. ‘I don’t know what else could be thought of it, but that it’s a sweet little bit of colour, ma’am. You never done nothing finer nor that flesh. It’s breathing, that is. Miss Alice called me in to have a look at it before you came down.’

‘Miss Alice is always an early bird,’ said the padrona, pleased. ‘I’m glad you like it, Forrester; but I don’t think I’ve got the light quite right here. Tell Mr. Welby I shall be glad to see him; but you look horribly grave, all the same, as if something had gone wrong.’

‘No, ma’am, nothing,’ said Forrester, with a glance over his shoulder;—‘only about Mr. Renton, as we’re afraid is in a bad way.’

‘Good heavens! Laurie! What is the matter with him?’ cried Mrs. Severn. The old man shook his head in the most tragical and desponding way.

‘Master will tell you himself, ma’am,’ Forrester said, withdrawing suddenly out of temptation and closing the door behind him. The padrona did not know what to think. Laurie had not been visible for a week at least in the Square; but even a young man, with all the proclivities towards mischief common to that animal, cannot go very far wrong in a week. She too prepared for the impending interview, as Mr. Welby was doing. She put away all her working materials, and set the big Louis Quinze fauteuil near the fire for her visitor. She even went so far as to put a sketching-block on the table, and sat down before it with a pencil in her hand, posing half consciously, as an amateur might have posed. The padrona, though she was not timid in general, was a little afraid of her tenant. If she left her picture on the easel it was because there was no time to get it comfortably smuggled away, and some inarticulate beginning placed in its stead. She turned the Louis Quinze, however, with its back to the easel by way of security. A word of approbation from old Welby was worth gold; but yet the risk of obtaining it was one Mrs. Severn did not care to run.

A few minutes after he tapped at the door, and came in, taking off the velvet cap which,—as he knew very well,—had such a picturesque effect on his white hair. The moment he entered the room the padrona saw how vain had been her precaution in turning the Louis Quinze chair. He glanced round him with the quick artist-eye which sees everything, and went up to the easel of course as politeness required, and delivered his little speech of courteous applause, under which Mrs. Severn discovered not a word of criticism, such as her usual visitors threw about so lightly. ‘I don’t think I have got the light quite here,’ she said, as she had said to Forrester,—but with alarm in her face. ‘Indeed, I don’t see what there is to find fault with,’ Mr. Welby answered, with his old-fashioned bow. Nothing could be more sweet or more unsatisfactory. The padrona almost forgot poor Laurie, as with a flush of vexation on her face she indicated to her visitor the Louis Quinze chair.

‘I hope you are not over-exerting yourself, my dear madam,’ the old painter said. ‘I am struck dumb by your energy. Where I produce one little picture you exhibit half-a-dozen. I admire, but I fear; and, if you will let an old man say so, you must take care not to overwork your brain.’

Tears sprang to the padrona’s eyes; but she kept them fixed steadily on her block, so that the old cynic, who, no doubt, knew all the commonplaces about women’s tears, should not see them. She said, with all the composure she was mistress of, ‘You and I are very different, Mr. Welby. Your one picture, of course, is more than worth my half-dozen; but one must do what one can.’

‘No one knows better than I what Mrs. Severn can do,’ said the R. A., with one of those smiles for which the padrona could have strangled him. ‘I was but taking the privilege of my age to warn you against overwork,—which is the grand disease of these times, and kills more people than cholera does. Pardon me. I want to speak to you about young Renton, in whom I know you take an interest. I advised him,’ Mr. Welby said, slowly, ‘to give up all idea of producing anything for the moment, and to devote himself to preparatory work,—hard work.’

‘So he told me,’ said the padrona, with a little spirit; for there was no mistaking the implied blame in old Welby’s tone. ‘And so I told him, too.’

‘Then somebody has been undermining us, my dear madam,’ said the R. A. ‘Somebody has been egging up the foolish boy to make a name for himself, and win fame, and so forth. Forrester brings me word that he has begun a great picture. High art, life-size, Edith finding the body of Harold. The young fellow must be mad.’

‘Edith finding the body of Harold!’ repeated Mrs. Severn, bewildered;—and then, what with her personal agitation, what with the curious anti-climax of this announcement after her fears about Laurie, the padrona, we are obliged to confess, burst into a sudden fit of nervous laughter. She laughed till the tears came into her eyes; and, to be sure, old Welby had no way of knowing how near to the surface were those tears before.

‘I confess I do not see the joke,’ he said, slowly. ‘Of course I have nothing to do with the boy. If he goes and makes a fool of himself, like so many others, it is nothing to me. Indeed, I don’t know who advised him to come here, where one can’t help seeing what he’s about. He would have been a great deal better, and out of one’s way, had he stayed at Kensington Gore.’

‘He was paying four guineas a-week for his rooms at Kensington Gore,’ said the padrona, meekly. ‘It was I who advised him to come to Charlotte Street. A man cannot live on nothing. If he had given all his income for rent——’

‘When I was like him I lived on nothing,’ said the R.A.; ‘but young men now-a-days must have their clubs and their luxuries. Why, what education has he had that he should begin to paint pictures? A few lines scratched on a bit of paper, or dabs of paint on a canvas do well enough for an amateur; but, good heavens, a painter! You don’t see it, ma’am; you don’t see it! Women never do. You think it’s all genius, and nonsense. You will tell me it’s genius that makes a Michael Angelo, I suppose; but, I tell you, it’s hard work.’

‘I do see it,’ said the padrona. ‘Sit down, please, and don’t be angry with me. I see it very well; but I can’t help laughing all the same. It is Laurie’s way. He will never be a Michael Angelo. It is so like him to go and set up a great picture to surprise us. One of these days, if you take no notice, he will come like Innocence itself, and invite us to go and look at it. I was afraid something was wrong with him; but this quite explains why he stayed away.’

‘And that is all a woman cares for!’ said Mr. Welby. ‘The boy’s quite well, and his absence accounted for; and what does it matter if he makes an ass of himself?’ Here the painter rose, and made a little giro round the room, pausing at the easel with a certain vindictiveness. ‘I wouldn’t give much for that baby’s chances of life,’ he said. ‘The creature will be a cripple if it grows up. It has no joints to its legs; and that little girl’s got her shoulder out. There’s where the elbow should come,’ he went on, making an imaginary line in the air. It was the same picture he had made a pretty speech about when he came into the room, from which it may be perceived that Mrs. Severn’s terror of her lodger’s visit was not without cause.

‘I shall be so glad if you tell me what you see wrong,’ the padrona said, with, I fear, more submission than she felt.

‘Wrong, ma’am,—it’s all wrong!’ cried the R.A.; ‘there’s not a line that could not be mended, nor a limb that is quite in its right place;—but I couldn’t paint such a picture for my life,’ Mr. Welby continued, with a sudden melting in his voice; ‘nor anybody else but yourself. The body’s out of drawing, but the soul’s divine. Light!—nonsense,—the light’s all as it ought to be; the light’s in that woman’s face. I don’t know how to better it. But this is not what we were talking of,’ he continued, suddenly turning his back on the picture. ‘We were talking of Laurie Renton. What is to be done about this ridiculous boy?’

The padrona was a little disturbed. She was overwhelmed by the praise, feeling all the sweetness of it; and she was pricked, and stung to smarting by the blame. It cost her a considerable effort to master herself, and to bring back her thoughts even to Laurie Renton. ‘You must not be too hard upon him,’ she said, with her voice a little tremulous. ‘A mind that has any energy in it must work in its own way.’ This was said half on Laurie’s account, no doubt, but also half on her own, after the assault she had sustained. ‘I think it would be best not to say too much about his big picture. He will read your disapproval in your eye.’

Mr. Welby shrugged his shoulders. ‘I doubt if a young fellow would take much interest in reading my eye. But he may read yours, perhaps,’ said the cynic, with a questioning glance, which Mrs. Severn was too much occupied to perceive, much less understand. And this was about the end of the consultation. They might admire and warn, and hold up beacons before the unwary youth, but there is no Act of Parliament forbidding a young painter to purchase for himself canvases six feet by ten, and to paint, or attempt to paint, heroic pictures thereupon. His advisers might regret and might do their best to turn him to wiser ways, but that was all; and the question was not urgent enough to demand the sacrifice of the very best hours of a November day,—which, heaven knows! are short enough for a painter’s requirements, in a district so rapidly reached by the rising fog from the city as Fitzroy Square.

It was the evening of the next day before Laurie carried out his resolution. With a little impatience he waited till it was dark, or nearly so, and then, with his sketch under his arm, went round the corner to the Square. To carry a portfolio or a picture under your arm is nothing wonderful in these regions; and I think it was something of a foppery on Laurie’s part to wait till the twilight; but, on the whole, it was rather Mr. Welby and old Forrester he was afraid of than the general public. The padrona was,—as he knew she would be,—in her dining room, sitting in the fire-light, with a heap of little scorched, shining faces about her, when he went in. One good thing of these short winter days was, that the woman-painter had a special hour in which it was impossible to do anything, and a perfectly legitimate indulgence to play with the little ones to her heart’s content. They were all upon her,—little Edie seated upon her mother’s lap, with her arms closely clasped round her neck, and the boys on either side embracing her shoulders. ‘She is my mamma,’ said little Edie; ‘go away, you boys.’ ‘She is my mamma as well,’ said Frank and Harry, with one voice. They could not see Laurie as he came in softly into the ruddy, warm, homelike darkness, nor hear the voice of the maid who opened the door for him; and Laurie, soft-hearted as he was, lingered over this little glimpse of those most intimate delights with which neither he nor any other stranger could intermeddle. When he saw the mother with her children,—who were all hers, and in whom no one else had any share,—the helpless, hopeful, joyous creatures, encircled by the woman’s soft, strong arms, which were all the protection, all the shelter they had in this world,—his heart melted within him, the foolish fellow! Alice sat at her piano in the drawing-room, playing the soft dream-music which was natural to the hour; and to her, had he been like other young men, Laurie’s thoughts and steps would naturally have turned; instead of which he stood gazing at her mother, who at that moment no more remembered him than if there had been no such being in existence. Laurie’s heart melted so that he could have gone and sat down on the hearth-rug at her feet, as one of the boys did, had he dared, and asked her to let him help her and stand by her. Help her in what? Laurie gave no answer to his own question; and, to be sure, he could not stand in the dark for more than a minute spying upon the fireside hour. He put down his sketch on a side-table with a little noise, which made the padrona start.

‘I am not a ghost,’ said Laurie, coming into the warmer circle of the firelight.

‘Then you should not behave as such,’ Mrs. Severn said, holding out her hand to him with a smile: and then the mere accident of the moment brought him beside little Frank on the hearth-rug, as he had thought, with a little sentimental impulse, of placing himself. He sat down on the child’s stool, and held out his hands to the fire, and looked up at the padrona’s face, which shone out in glimpses by the cheerful firelight. Sometimes little Edith, with her wreath of hair, would come between him and her mother like a little golden, rose-tinted, cloud; sometimes the fitful blaze would decline for a moment, and throw the whole scene into darkness. But Mrs. Severn did not change her attitude, or put down the child from her lap, or ring for the lamp, on Laurie’s arrival. He came in without breaking the spell,—without disturbing the calm of the moment. And after an absence of more than a week, and some days’ work and seclusion, it is not wonderful if he felt as if he had suddenly come home.

‘This would not be a bad time to lecture you, as I am going to do,’ said the padrona. ‘He has been very naughty, children; he ought to be put in the corner. Let us make up our minds what we will do to him, now we have him here.’

‘Give him some bad sums to do, mamma,’ said little Harry, whose life was made a burden to him in that way; ‘or make him write out fifty lines; and don’t tell him any stories. What have you done, Mr. Renton? I want to know.’

‘Give him a bad mark in the pantomime book,’ said Frank. Now, the pantomime-book was a ledger of the severest penalties; the bad marks disabled a sinner altogether from the enjoyment of the highest of pleasures, and was as good as a pantomime lost. The savage suggestion awoke the sympathy of little Edie on her mother’s knee.

‘What has he done?’ said Edie. ‘Poor Laurie! But mamma won’t listen to these cruel boys. Mamma listens to me. I am the little princess in the new picture. Mamma, I love Laurie. Make him go down on his knees and beg pardon, and I know he will never do it any more.’

‘I will never do it any more,’ said Laurie, with one knee upon the hearth-rug. There was something in the soft, genial warmth, and kindly, flickering light, the touches of the children, and their sweet, ringing tones,—the face of their mother now and then shining upon him, and her voice coming out of the shadow,—which captivated him in some unintelligible way. There was no romance in the matter, certainly. She was years older than he was, and thought of him as a grandmother might have thought. But Laurie Renton was that kind of man. His heart was full of tenderness and sympathy, and a certain sense of the pathos of the situation which did not strike the chief actors in it. Mrs. Severn thought herself a happy woman,—notwithstanding all that had befallen her,—when she sat down by her fire, and felt the soft pressure of those soft, baby arms; but to Laurie there was a pathos in it which brought the tears to his eyes. ‘I will never do it any more,’ he said; ‘I will do whatever mamma tells me. I will be her servant if she will let me.’ Perhaps it was well for Laurie that the children immediately burst into a chorus of laughter and jubilation over his proposal. ‘He will be our Forrester, and do everything we tell him,’ cried the boys; and the padrona, carried away by their delight, thought nothing of the bended knee nor the unnecessary fervour of submission. I doubt even if she heard very clearly what he said, or was the least aware of his attitude; but probably instinct warned her that there was enough of this. She rang the bell, which was close to her hand, without saying anything. After all, the firelight and the hearth-rug was only for the children and herself. And I think Laurie even was a little ashamed of his temporary intoxication when the lamp came in, carried by the maid, bringing back the light of common evening,—the clear outlines of prose and matter-of-fact.

It was not till after tea that he brought his sketch to exhibit it. The children had gone up-stairs, and Miss Hadley had returned home, and no evening visitor had as yet arrived. When Laurie was left alone with the padrona, she laid down her needlework and lifted up her eyes to him, beaming with a kindly light. ‘I have something serious to say to you now,’ she said. ‘I have been hearing dreadful things about you. You have not taken our advice.’

‘Our advice! I don’t know what that means,’ said Laurie. ‘There is but one padrona in the world, and her advice I always take.’

‘Do not be hypocritical,’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘You promised to paint no pictures, but to be busy and study and do your work; and here you have set up an Edith as big as Reginald Suffolk’s, and you call that taking my advice.’

‘Here she is,’ said Laurie, producing his sketch. He placed it on the table, propped up against the open workbox, and took the lamp in his hand that the light might fall on it as it ought. He did not defend himself. ‘I kept away as long as I could, meaning not to tell you yet; but that did not answer,’ said Laurie; ‘and here she is.’

The padrona put away her work out of her hands, and gave all her attention to the new object thus placed before her; and whatever might be the qualities of Edith, the group thus formed was pictorial enough;—the room all brightness and warmth, centering in the pure light of the lamp which Laurie held up in his hand; the fair, ample, seated figure gazing earnestly at the little picture, with her own face partially in the shade,—behind her the open doors of the larger room, dark, but warm, with a redness in it of the fire, and a pale gleam from the curtained windows. But the actors in this still interior were unconscious of its effect. She was looking intently at the sketch, and he, pausing to hear what she should say of it, holding his breath.

‘Put down the lamp,’ said the padrona after a pause, ‘it is too heavy to hold, and I can see. And sit down here till I speak to you. You have not taken our advice.’

‘I understand,’ said Laurie, and his lip quivered a little, poor fellow! ‘That means I may take away the rubbish. You need not say any more, for it will pain you. I understand.’

‘You don’t understand anything about it,’ said Mrs. Severn, putting out her hand to retain the sketch where it was. ‘Let me say out my say. I don’t want to like it. I wish I could say it was very bad. If it had been atrocious it would have been better for you, you rash boy! But I must not tell any fibs. I like the sketch; there is something in it. I can’t tell how you should know about that woman, expecting every moment to see—— Yes, put her away, Laurie, for a little; her eyes have gone to my heart.’

Laurie put down his creation upon the table with a face all glowing with pride and delight. ‘I hoped you would like it,’ he said; ‘but that it should move you,——’ and in his gratitude he would have kissed the hand of the friend to whose counsel he owed so much. As for the padrona, she withdrew her hand quickly, with a momentary look of surprise.

‘But I have more to say,’ she went on. ‘You must wait till you have heard me out. Don’t be vexed or disappointed. I doubt if you will ever make any more of her. Now don’t speak. I will say to you what I have never said to any one. How many sketches like that have I seen in my life, full of talent, full of meaning! It is not a sketch;—it is all the picture you will paint of that subject. I know what I am saying. She who is so real in that, with her awful expectations, will be staring like a woman on the stage in the big picture. I know it, Laurie. I have seen such things, over and over again.’

Laurie said nothing. He saw her eyes, which were still fixed on his sketch, suddenly brim over, quite silently, in two big drops, which fell at Edith’s feet. Mortification, disappointment, and, at the same time, a kind of consolatory feeling, took possession of him. The downfall was great from the first flush of joy in her approbation; but yet—— Clearly it was of poor Severn she was thinking. Poor Severn, of whom it was certainly the fact that he never did anything good except in sketches. Laurie’s heart rose magnanimous at this thought. If that was all, how soon he could prove to her that he was a different man from poor Severn! ‘It is not worth a tear,’ he said; ‘never mind it. I ought to have known that it would bring things to your mind——’

‘It is not that,’ said the padrona, recovering herself; ‘it is because I am anxious you should not waste your strength. Put it up again where it can be seen, or, rather, bring it into the other room, where there is a better place. Take the lamp, and I will take the picture. I like it,’ she said, as she followed him into the larger drawing-room. ‘Let it stand here, where it can be seen. And I will send for Mr. Welby if he is at home. I like it very much;—but I don’t want you to paint the big picture all the same.’

‘If you like it, that is reason enough why I should paint the big picture,’ said Laurie. If the padrona discerned the touch of tender enthusiasm in his tone, she took no notice whatever of it, but busied herself placing the sketch in the most favourable light.

‘Mr. Welby came up-stairs, and insulted me, all on your account,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Oh, don’t look furious. I don’t want any one to fight my battles. But it is cruel of him, all the same. He congratulated me on my energy, and on sending six pictures to the Exhibitions where he sent one. It was very ill-natured of him,—a man who has had a whole long life to perfect himself, and nothing to hurry him on. Does not he think, I wonder, that even I would like to take time and spare no labour, and paint something that would last and live?’ Mrs. Severn said, with a flush coming over her face.

‘And so you do, and so they will,’ said Laurie, carried away by his feelings. The padrona shook her head.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t deceive myself. I get money for my pictures, and that is about what they are worth. But don’t you think, Laurie,—you who understand things that are not spoken,—don’t you think it sometimes makes my heart sick, to feel that, if I could but wait, if I could but take time, I might do work that would be worth doing,—real work,—one picture, say, that would have a whole soul in it? But I can’t take time: there are the children, and daily bread; and—he taunts me that I paint six pictures for his one!’

‘Padrona mia, nothing that could be painted would be half so good as you are,’ cried Laurie, not knowing in the thrill and pain of sympathy what he said.

‘I should like to paint something that would be better than me,’ said the padrona, ‘but I cannot. I have to work for their bread,—and you feel for me when I tell you this. And don’t you see,—don’t you see why I bid you work?’ cried the artful woman, suddenly turning upon him, standing on her own heart, as it were, to reach him. ‘There is nothing to urge you into execution, to compel you to exhibit and sell and get money. Why don’t you take the good of your blessed leisure, you foolish boy? Never think of the Academy, nor of what you will paint, nor of what people think. Make yourself a painter, Laurie, now that you have your life in your hands, and heaps of time, and nothing to urge you on. But, good heavens! here are people coming,’ cried Mrs. Severn,—‘to find me flushed and half crying over all this, I declare. Talk to them till I come back, and I will send down the child to help you; and don’t forget what I’ve been saying,’ she said, as she rushed out of the room.

This assault had been so sudden, so trenchant, so effective;—he had been led so artfully to the softness of real feeling, in order to have the thrust made at his most unguarded moment, that Laurie stood confused when his Mentor left him, not quite sure where he was, or what had happened. Had it been any stranger who had appeared, Mrs. Severn’s young friend would have made a poor impression upon her visitor; but, happily, it was Alice who came in,—Alice with her curls,—harmonious spirit, setting the house to music, as her mother said. This was all poor Laurie made by his honesty in carrying his Edith, in her earliest conception, for the approval of the Square.

THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON:
Strangeways and Walden, Printers,
28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.