an artist of eminence, though
many of the colonial gentry on the painter's arrival had expressed a
wish to transmit their lineaments to posterity by moans of his skill.
Whenever such proposals were made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the
applicant and seemed to look him through and through. If he beheld
only a sleek and comfortable visage, though there were a gold-laced
coat to adorn the picture and golden guineas to pay for it, he civilly
rejected the task and the reward; but if the face were the index of
anything uncommon in thought, sentiment or experience, or if he met a
beggar in the street with a white beard and a furrowed brow, or if
sometimes a child happened to look up and smile, he would exhaust all
the art on them that he denied to wealth.

Pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the painter became an
object of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the
technical merit of his productions, yet there were points in regard to
which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment
of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture produced on
such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while
they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself as him
who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it must be owned, was
tinctured with the prejudices of the age and country. Some deemed it
an offence against the Mosaic law, and even a presumptuous mockery of
the Creator, to bring into existence such lively images of his
creatures. Others, frightened at the art which could raise phantoms at
will and keep the form of the dead among the living, were inclined to
consider the painter as a magician, or perhaps the famous Black Man of
old witch-times plotting mischief in a new guise. These foolish
fancies were more, than half believed among the mob. Even in superior
circles his character was invested with a vague awe, partly rising
like smoke-wreaths from the popular superstitions, but chiefly caused
by the varied knowledge and talents which he made subservient to his
profession.

Being on the eve of marriage, Walter Ludlow and Elinor were eager to
obtain their portraits as the first of what, they doubtless hoped,
would be a long series of family pictures. The day after the
conversation above recorded they visited the painter's rooms. A
servant ushered them into an apartment where, though the artist
himself was not visible, there were personages whom they