taking into consideration
her dark eye with its soft lashes, and the long shapely arms, and the
exquisite ivory tones of the old lace dress, the scheme should really
turn out, as he had so promptly put it to Miss Robinson herself, "a most
distinguished piece of portraiture." He was shrewd enough to understand
the essential shyness of her disposition, and he felt he might well
invest her expression with some suggestion of this, though it should
come out as a sort of gentle spiritual modesty.

And now his imagination returned to the contemplation of his own
fortunes, and went soaring skywards. His luck having once changed, who
could say what might not turn up next? Another sitter might appear, one
of your great heroines, stately and brilliant--a sort of Lady Betty, in
fact: he might as well admit he _had_ Lady Betty in mind! Such a
portrait, appropriately conceived, would form a remarkable pendant to
this one. Then, too, he might make another dash at his masterpiece! Such
a display of versatility in the next year's exhibitions must place his
name on everybody's lips, must surely pave the way to his reputation not
only as a great decorative portrait painter, but also as a modern of the
moderns, touched to inspiration by all the stress and striving of his
age!

This roseate flight was abruptly disturbed by the advent of the postman.
The rat-tat, one of the double sort, imperiously summoned him to the
door. Had the "something else" already turned up? He rather prided
himself on the coolness with which he rose to meet it. The postman
handed him a packet and a letter. But at a glance he saw that the packet
was a rejected drawing and the letter Mary's, and he went straight down
into the depths again. He, however, affected a cheerful good morning to
the postman; then, no sooner alone, tore open the letter, with the
bitter taste of yesterday's scene with his sister full in his throat. To
his astonishment, he pulled out two five-pound Bank of England notes,
and only a few words accompanied them. "DEAREST," she wrote,--
"Since you left me to-day I have suffered beyond endurance. That you
will ever forgive me for my harshness I cannot hope. I am the only soul
you have to turn to, and yet I struck at you as with a whip. Your face
as you turned away will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have been
sobbing and sobbing, feeling my heart must break. I ask you to be good
to me now, and take this little money. Darling, don't punish me b