top!" Annabella, with
a shriek of disgust, flung the bottle furiously into the fireplace.
Fortunately it was summer-time, or I might have had to echo the shriek
with a cry of "Fire!"

"You wretch! you brute! you low, mischievous, swindling blackguard!"
cried my amiable sister, shaking her skirts with all her might, "you
have done this on purpose! Don't tell me! I know you have. What do
you mean by pestering me to come to this dog-kennel of a place?" she
continued, turning fiercely upon the partner of her existence and
legitimate receptacle of all her superfluous wrath. "What do you mean by
bringing me here, to see how you have been swindled? Yes, sir, swindled!
He has no more idea of painting than you have. He has cheated you out
of your money. If he was starving tomorrow he would be the last man in
England to make away with himself--he is too great a wretch--he is too
vicious--he is too lost to all sense of respectability--he is too much
of a discredit to his family. Take me away! Give me your arm directly!
I told you not to go near him from the first. This is what comes of your
horrid fondness for money. Suppose Lady Malkinshaw does outlive him;
suppose I do lose my legacy. What is three thousand pounds to you? My
dress is ruined. My shawl's spoiled. _He_ die! If the old woman lives
to the age of Methuselah, he won't die. Give me your arm. No! Go to my
father. I want medical advice. My nerves are torn to pieces. I'm giddy,
faint, sick--SICK, Mr. Batterbury!"

Here she became hysterical, and vanished, leaving a mixed odor of musk
and turpentine behind her, which preserved the memory of her visit for
nearly a week afterward.

"Another scene in the drama of my life seems likely to close in before
long," thought I. "No chance now of getting my amiable sister to
patronize struggling genius. Do I know of anybody else who will sit to
me? No, not a soul. Having thus no portraits of other people to paint,
what is it my duty, as a neglected artist, to do next? Clearly to take a
portrait of myself."

I did so, making my own likeness quite a pleasant relief to the ugliness
of my brother-in-law's. It was my intention to send both portraits
to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to get custom, and show the public
generally what I could do. I knew the institution with which I had to
deal, and called my own likeness, Portrait of a Nobleman.

That dexterous appeal to the tenderest feelings of my distinguished
countrymen very nearly su