sation, the course of your story has become chill and constrained,
and you have lost the power of arresting the attention and exciting
the imagination, in which upon other occasions you may be considered as
having succeeded tolerably well."

I made my bow in requital of the compliment, which was probably thrown
in by way of placebo, and expressed myself willing at least to make one
trial of a more straightforward style of composition, in which my actors
should do more, and say less, than in my former attempts of this kind.
Dick gave me a patronising and approving nod, and observed that, finding
me so docile, he would communicate, for the benefit of my muse, a
subject which he had studied with a view to his own art.

"The story," he said, "was, by tradition, affirmed to be truth,
although, as upwards of a hundred years had passed away since the events
took place, some doubts upon the accuracy of all the particulars might
be reasonably entertained."

When Dick Tinto had thus spoken, he rummaged his portfolio for the
sketch from which he proposed one day to execute a picture of fourteen
feet by eight. The sketch, which was cleverly executed, to use the
appropriate phrase, represented an ancient hall, fitted up and furnished
in what we now call the taste of Queen Elizabeth's age. The light,
admitted from the upper part of a high casement, fell upon a female
figure of exquisite beauty, who, in an attitude of speechless terror,
appeared to watch the issue of a debate betwixt two other persons. The
one was a young man, in the Vandyke dress common to the time of Charles
I., who, with an air of indignant pride, testified by the manner in
which he raised his head and extended his arm, seemed to be urging a
claim of right, rather than of favour, to a lady whose age, and some
resemblance in their features, pointed her out as the mother of the
younger female, and who appeared to listen with a mixture of displeasure
and impatience.

Tinto produced his sketch with an air of mysterious triumph, and gazed
on it as a fond parent looks upon a hopeful child, while he anticipates
the future figure he is to make in the world, and the height to which
he will raise the honour of his family. He held it at arm's length
from me--he helt it closer--he placed it upon the top of a chest of
drawers--closed the lower shutters of the casement, to adjust a downward
and favourable light--fell back to the due distance, dragging me
after him--shaded hi