eets leading from Leicester
Square to the Strand. There was something in her face (dimly visible
behind a thick veil) that instantly stopped me as I passed her. I looked
back and hesitated. Her figure was the perfection of modest grace. I
yielded to the impulse of the moment. In plain words, I did what you
would have done, in my place--I followed her.

She looked round--discovered me--and instantly quickened her pace.
Reaching the westward end of the Strand, she crossed the street and
suddenly entered a shop.

I looked through the window, and saw her speak to a respectable elderly
person behind the counter, who darted an indignant look at me, and at
once led my charming stranger into a back office. For the moment, I
was fool enough to feel puzzled; it was out of my character you will
say--but remember, all men are fools when they first fall in love. After
a little while I recovered the use of my senses. The shop was at the
corner of a side street, leading to the market, since removed to make
room for the railway. "There's a back entrance to the house!" I thought
to myself--and ran down the side street. Too late! the lovely fugitive
had escaped me. Had I lost her forever in the great world of London? I
thought so at the time. Events will show that I never was more mistaken
in my life.

I was in no humor to call on my friend. It was not until another day had
passed that I sufficiently recovered my composure to see poverty staring
me in the face, and to understand that I had really no alternative but
to ask the good-natured artist to lend me a helping hand.

I had heard it darkly whispered that he was something of a vagabond. But
the term is so loosely applied, and it seems so difficult, after all, to
define what a vagabond is, or to strike the right moral balance between
the vagabond work which is boldly published, and the vagabond work which
is reserved for private circulation only, that I did not feel justified
in holding aloof from my former friend. Accordingly, I renewed our
acquaintance, and told him my present difficulty. He was a sharp man,
and he showed me a way out of it directly.

"You have a good eye for a likeness," he said; "and you have made
it keep you hitherto. Very well. Make it keep you still. You can't
profitably caricature people's faces any longer--never mind! go to the
other extreme, and flatter them now. Turn portrait-painter. You shall
have the use of this study three days in the week, for ten