s striking lyres on the deck. On the bank
where there was most room for it, appeared our old, old friend, the
architectural City, which nobody could possibly live in; and which is
composed of nothing but temples, towers, monuments, flights of steps,
and bewildering rows of pillars. In the distance, our favorite blue
mountains were as blue and as peaky as ever, on Valentine's canvas; and
our generally-approved pale yellow sun was still disfigured by the
same attack of aerial jaundice, from which he has suffered ever since
classical compositions first forbade him to take refuge from the sight
behind a friendly cloud.

After standing before his picture in affectionate contemplation of its
beauties for a minute or so, Valentine resumes the business of preparing
his palette.

As the bee comes and goes irregularly from flower to flower; as the
butterfly flutters in a zig-zag course from one sunny place on the
garden wall to another--or, as an old woman runs from wrong omnibus to
wrong omnibus, at the Elephant and Castle, before she can discover the
right one; as a countryman blunders up one street, and down another,
before he can find the way to his place of destination in London--so
does Mr. Blyth now come and go, flutter, run, and blunder in a mighty
hurry about his studio, in search of missing colors which ought to be in
his painting-box, but which are not to be found there. While he is still
hunting through the room, his legs come into collision with a large
drawing-board on which there is a blank sheet of paper stretched. This
board seems to remind Mr. Blyth of some duty connected with it. He
places it against two chairs, in a good light; then approaching a shelf
on which some plaster-casts are arranged, takes down from it a bust of
the Venus de Medici--which bust he next places on his old office
stool, opposite to the two chairs and the drawing-board. Just as these
preparations are completed, the door of the studio opens, and a very
important member of the painter's household--who has not yet been
introduced to the reader, and who is in no way related either to
Valentine or his wife--enters the room.

This mysterious resident under Mr. Blyth's roof is a Young Lady.

She is dressed in very pretty, simple, Quaker-like attire. Her gown is
of a light-gray color, covered by a neat little black apron in front,
and fastened round the throat over a frill collar. The sleeves of this
dress are worn tight to the arm, and are t