to
quell or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by
the fatigue of years, yet it seemed aged still more by the thoughts that
had worn away both soul and body. There were no lashes to the deep-set
eyes, and scarcely a trace of the arching lines of the eyebrows above
them. Set this head on a spare and feeble frame, place it in a frame of
lace wrought like an engraved silver fish-slice, imagine a heavy gold
chain over the old man's black doublet, and you will have some dim idea
of this strange personage, who seemed still more fantastic in the sombre
twilight of the staircase. One of Rembrandt's portraits might have
stepped down from its frame to walk in an appropriate atmosphere of
gloom, such as the great painter loved. The older man gave the younger a
shrewd glance, and knocked thrice at the door. It was opened by a man of
forty or thereabout, who seemed to be an invalid.

"Good day, Master."

Porbus bowed respectfully, and held the door open for the younger man to
enter, thinking that the latter accompanied his visitor; and when he
saw that the neophyte stood a while as if spellbound, feeling, as every
artist-nature must feel, the fascinating influence of the first sight
of a studio in which the material processes of art are revealed, Porbus
troubled himself no more about this second comer.

All the light in the studio came from a window in the roof, and was
concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save
for three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the
remoter angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night,
but the silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter's corselet, that hung
upon the wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among
the brown shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and
glistening surface of an antique sideboard covered with curious
silver-plate, or struck out a line of glittering dots among the raised
threads of the golden warp of some old brocaded curtains, where the
lines of the stiff, heavy folds were broken, as the stuff had been flung
carelessly down to serve as a model.

Plaster _ecorches_ stood about the room; and here and there, on shelves
and tables, lay fragments of classical sculpture-torsos of antique
goddesses, worn smooth as though all the years of the centuries that had
passed over them had been lovers' kisses. The walls were covered, from
floor to ceiling, with countless sk