time to time they changed their lodgings, always
coming to some quieter ones, and now they had got to the highest flight
of a tall house in a very shady street. Their father was not at home
very often, but they did not mind this much, and were very happy
together.

Raymond made a little money by drawing pictures for a cheap periodical,
and with this he bought materials for his darling pursuit. Madge watched
him and gloried in him, and dusted the rooms, and laid the table for
meals, and mended his clothes, and thought hopefully of the time when
Raymond should be a famous painter, and she should leave the dingy
London lodging and live in the fresh breezy country which her brother
told her about.

Madge was not beautiful; her little face was sallow and pinched: but she
had two pretty things about her. One was her hair, which was of a rich
warm brown colour, with a dash of chestnut in it, and when unbound it
fell in ripples nearly to her feet; the other was her eyes--large,
lustrous, brown eyes--with an intense earnestness in them, seldom to be
seen in one so young. These eyes appeared in every one of Raymond's
pictures, for they haunted him.

"Now, Raymond, come to breakfast," Madge said when she had finished
making the toast.

He did not appear to hear her, for he went to a little distance and
surveyed his picture with his head on one side.

Madge poured out the tea, and then came over to him, laid her hand on
his which held the brush, and said entreatingly, "Come."

"Well, it is too bad," he said laughingly, "first to make you roast your
face, and then to keep you from eating your breakfast;" and he laid down
his brush and pallette and came to the table; but he ate hurriedly and
soon returned to his work.

Madge put away the things and brought her sewing to the window, where
she sat all the morning watching Raymond's busy fingers. Then she went
out to the colour-shop at the end of the next street, to buy something
which her brother wanted, and to see if the picture he had left there
was sold.

Alas! it was still in the window along with several others; a few
butchers' boys, working-men, and ragged little girls were eagerly
pressing their faces against the glass looking at the pictures, but none
of them were likely to be purchasers. Raymond's picture was called "The
Welcome." There was a cottage room, and an open door, through which a
working man was coming in, while a little girl sprang to meet him. The
girl h