drawing for his share of the dinner, "if you will score the value off
the bill." And the landlady had repeated the story to Cambridge and
Dulcie when she showed the picture to them, and expressed her conviction
that the lad was far gone in the spleen--he seemed always in a brown
study; too quiet-like for a lad. She should have no peace in her mind
about him if she were in any way related to him. Bless her heart! he
would sell another for something much less than a crown.

Dulcie, all in a glow, had actually been chaffering with the painter for
one of those wonderful groups of luscious peaches, mellow pears, July
flowers, and striped balsamine, singing birds and fluttering insects,
full of extravagant beauty. In the business, too, Dulcie had been by far
the more overcome of the two. The painter, roused to a job, had not
cheated her; on the contrary, he had been as usual a conscientious
spendthrift of his powers. He had conducted the negotiation in the
plainest, manliest spirit, looking the eager girl in the face with his
blue eyes, and receiving her crown-piece in his hand, which was nobler
than his face, inasmuch as it was seamed with the action of his paints
and tools, without a notion of anything unbecoming or degrading.

The brother painter shook his head when he returned, and found what Will
had been about in his absence.

"Man, man, didn't I bargain that I was to pay for your company, and
haven't I put you in the worst bed, and allowed you the burnt meat and
the sodden bread, and the valise to carry twice as often as I took it
myself, to satisfy your plaguy scruples? And yet you could go and
scurvily steal a march upon me the moment you were out of my sight!
But," brightening immeasurably, and bowing low, "you have certainly
contrived what I had not the face to attempt--an introduction to the
ladies--although, no doubt, it was very simply done, and you are a very
modest man, as I do not need to tell them. Ladies, I am Sam Winnington,
son of the late gallant Captain Winnington, though I should not call
him so; and this is Will Locke, the vagrant child of an excellent man,
engaged, I believe, in the bookselling and stationery trade. We are
painters, if it please you, on a tour in search of sketches and
commissions. I beg to assure you, that I do portraits on a great scale
as well as a small, and Will sometimes does lions in the jungle, as well
as larks in a tuft of grass."

Cambridge was more posed than ever by t