and am determined either to 'mak' a spoon or
spoil a horn.' The first towns I stop at in
Spain will be Burgos, Valladolid, Madrid,
Toledo, and Cordova; thence I go to Seville,
Cadiz, and Gibraltar; thence to Malaga and
Granada, visit the Alhambra, then hey for merry
England!"

This Spanish tour was the beginning of what
we may call the painter's second term of
prosperity. He wrote long, enthusiastic, interesting
letters to his family and friends, and, after
a year's good pilgrimage, returned home with a
sketch-book rich in material for future fame
and profit and noble art; painting pictures,
publishing Picturesque Views in Spain,
illustrating the Landscape Annual—always genial,
generous, busy, and thriving.

In 1838, his Spanish studies being somewhat
exhausted, he prepared to fulfil the cherished
dream of his life, and to go out to the East.
He had a mole on his leg, and a fortune-telling
book, to which he used to pin his faith as a lad,
assured him that this indicated he would be a
great traveller. "After the wandering life I
have led," he says simply, "I have sometimes
thought that mole might have had something to
do with it." However, whether due to the
mole or not, he once more prepared to wander
away, and on the 24th of September, 1838,
found himself writing to his daughter Christine
from Alexandria. He remained about eleven
months; and when he came home, he painted
some of the noblest pictures that he had yet
done, and published his Holy Land.

After this he was fêted in Edinburgh, where
he had been a mere house-painter, and had
thought himself wonderfully blessed by fortune
when he drew his salary of twenty-five shillings
a week; and Lord Cockburn toasted him, and
Christopher North praised him, and they sang
a song, written for the occasion. Another
time (1858), he and Stanfield—Stanny, as
he always affectionately called him—visited
Scotland together, and rambled about the
places where they had often rambled before,
when as yet poor and unknown, with only hope
and the conscious power of genius to bear them
on. Here was the burn paddled in when a wee
callant; there the sign painted when the Eastern
traveller was only an apprentice-boy, with that
blessed mole on his leg! And then came a
grand gala-day, when the freedom of the city
was presented to Roberts in Edinburgh, and in
the evening a dinner given to him and Stanfield
by the members of the Royal Scottish Academy.
And this time again a song, written for the
occasion, was part of the honour of the evening.

It is not often that we see such a long,
faithful, affectionate brotherhood as existed
between these two men—a brotherhood never
interrupted by anger, jealousy, misunderstanding,
or any of those meaner passions which so often
destroy the best affections. It lasted to the
end, as fresh and warm as in the beginning,
and "Stanny," and "Dear Stanfield," are
frequent insertions in Roberts's later diary.
But the faithful friendship and the busy life
were both drawing to a close. On the 25th of
November, 1864, Roberts was seized with an
apoplectic fit while walking in Berners-street,
and died that same evening, aged sixty-eight; and
on the 18th of May, 1867, Clarkson Stanfield was
only a memory and a name, dying tranquilly in
his home, aged seventy-three. The old friends
were not long separated, and the generous
rivalry which had begun in youth, and been
continued through manhood up to age, was
not exchanged for a long isolation. Life could
never have been the same to either without his
friend, and it was a merciful dispensation which
took the one so soon after the other. Very
little is said of Stanfield in this Life, but the
close intimacy subsisting between them was
well known to all their friends, and to the
artist-world at large. And yet it would seem
at first sight that there were more elements of
disunion than of affection between them.
Roberts was a Scotchman and a Presbyterian;
Stanfield was Irish and a Roman Catholic; they
had been rivals in Edinburgh; and their
association in London as joint scene-painters to the
same theatre would have been full of danger to
men of less simple faith and less true artist-
feeling. But nothing came between them;
and, from first to last, "Davie and Stanny"
were true brothers in art and in love.

THE LATE MISS HOLLINGFORD

CHAPTER IV

The winter deepened. Christmas was drawing
near, and workmen were busy setting the
old hall to rights for the reception of Mr. Hill
and his family. John had been requested to
oversee the arrangements, for the place had
been unoccupied for years, and there were
many alterations to be made, and much new
furnishing to be done. The housekeeper, who
had quietly dozed away half her life in two
rooms in a corner of the house, now bestirred
herself joyfully to open shutters, kindle fires,
see to the sweeping and scrubbing, keep her
eye upon painters and charwomen, and make
ready store of pickles and preserves for the
adornment of her pantry shelves.

This good woman was an old acquaintance of
our two girls, their long walks often leading
them across the moor, and through the grounds
to the hall. Mrs. Beatty, from her lonely
window, had always espied their approach, and
many a winter day had she dosed them with
sweets by her fireside, while she dried their wet
wrappings, and told them stories of the pictures
in the dining-room. Later, they had discovered
the library, a sunny room at the south side of
the house, stored with an excellent collection
of books, and had gone there to read when it
pleased them. I, in my capacity of governess,
encouraged them in this habit, and at least
once a week we had a "reading day," as we
called it. Mrs. Beatty knew our day, and had
coffee and a blazing fire awaiting us. And here
we had delicious times of study, with our books
in our laps, perched on the steps of the little