just been
telling him. He wished very much that Madame M; auunster would make a
comfortable and honorable marriage. Presently, as the sunset expanded
and deepened, the fancy took him of making a note of so magnificent a
piece of coloring. He returned to his studio and fetched out a small
panel, with his palette and brushes, and, placing the panel against a
window-sill, he began to daub with great gusto. While he was so occupied
he saw Mr. Brand, in the distance, slowly come down from Mr. Wentworth's
house, nursing a large folded umbrella. He walked with a joyless,
meditative tread, and his eyes were bent upon the ground. Felix poised
his brush for a moment, watching him; then, by a sudden impulse, as
he drew nearer, advanced to the garden-gate and signaled to him--the
palette and bunch of brushes contributing to this effect.

Mr. Brand stopped and started; then he appeared to decide to accept
Felix's invitation. He came out of Mr. Wentworth's gate and passed along
the road; after which he entered the little garden of the cottage. Felix
had gone back to his sunset; but he made his visitor welcome while he
rapidly brushed it in.

"I wanted so much to speak to you that I thought I would call you," he
said, in the friendliest tone. "All the more that you have been to see
me so little. You have come to see my sister; I know that. But you have
n't come to see me--the celebrated artist. Artists are very sensitive,
you know; they notice those things." And Felix turned round, smiling,
with a brush in his mouth.

Mr. Brand stood there with a certain blank, candid majesty, pulling
together the large flaps of his umbrella. "Why should I come to see
you?" he asked. "I know nothing of Art."

"It would sound very conceited, I suppose," said Felix, "if I were to
say that it would be a good little chance for you to learn something.
You would ask me why you should learn; and I should have no answer to
that. I suppose a minister has no need for Art, eh?"

"He has need for good temper, sir," said Mr. Brand, with decision.

Felix jumped up, with his palette on his thumb and a movement of the
liveliest deprecation. "That 's because I keep you standing there
while I splash my red paint! I beg a thousand pardons! You see what bad
manners Art gives a man; and how right you are to let it alone. I did
n't mean you should stand, either. The piazza, as you see, is ornamented
with rustic chairs; though indeed I ought to warn you that they hav