and looking suspiciously about her while she
spoke, her eyes fell on the chimneypiece.  An
eau-de-cologne bottle stood upon it, which she
took up immediately with a languishing sigh.

It contained turpentine for washing brushes
in.  Before I could warn her, she had
sprinkled herself absently with half the
contents of the bottle.  In spite of all the musk
that now filled the room, the turpentine
betrayed itself almost as soon as I cried
"Stop!"  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 to-morrow 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.  What is three thousand pounds
to you?  My dress is ruined.  My shawl's
spoilt.  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.  My
nerves are torn to pieces. I'm giddy, faint,
sick—sick, Mr. Batterbury!  I want advice.
Give me your arm. Go to my father. Take
me away.  Call the carriage."  Here she
became hysterical, and vanished, leaving a
mixed odour of musk and turpentine behind
her, which preserved the memory of her visit
for nearly a week afterwards.

"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 patronise 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
succeeded. The portrait of Mr. Batterbury
(much the more carefully painted picture of
the two) was summarily turned out.  The
Portrait of a Nobleman was politely reserved
to be hung up, if the Royal Academicians
could possibly find room for it.  They could
not.  So that picture also vanished back into
the obscurity of the artist's easel.  Weak and
well-meaning people would have desponded
under these circumstances; but your genuine
Rogue is a man of elastic temperament, not
easily compressible under any pressure of
disaster.  I sent the portrait of Mr. Batterbury
to the house of that distinguished patron,
and the Portrait of a Nobleman to the
pawnbroker's.  After this I had plenty of elbow-
room in the studio, and could walk up and
down briskly, smoking my pipe, and thinking
about what I should do next.

I had observed that the generous friend
and vagabond brother artist, whose lodger I
now was, never seemed to be in absolute
want of money; and yet the walls of his
studio informed me that nobody bought his
pictures.  There hung all his great works,
rejected by the Royal Academy, and
neglected by the patrons of Art; and there,
nevertheless, was he, blithely plying the
brush among them, not rich, it is true, but
certainly never without money enough in his
pocket for the supply of all his modest wants.
Where did he find his resources?  I determined
to ask him the question the very next
time he came to the studio.

"Dick," said I (we called each other by our
Christian names)  "where do you get your
money?"

"Frank,"  said he, "what makes you ask
that question?"

"Necessity," I replied.  "My stock of money
is decreasing, and I don't know how to
replenish it.  My pictures have been turned
out of the exhibition-rooms; nobody comes
to sit to me; I can't make a farthing; and I
must try another line in the Arts, or leave
your studio.  We are old friends now. I've
paid you honestly week by week; and if you
can oblige me, I think you ought.  You
earn money somehow.  Why can't I?"

"Are you at all particular?" asked Dick.

"Not in the least !"  said I.

Dick nodded, and looked pleased; handed
me my hat, and put on his own.

"You are just the sort of man I like," said
he, "and I would sooner trust you than anyone
else I know.  You ask how I contrive to
earn money, seeing that all my pictures are
still in my own possession.  My dear fellow,
whenever my pockets are empty, and I want
a ten-pound note to put into them, I make an
Old Master."

I stared hard at him, not at first quite
understanding what he meant.

"The Old Master I can make best, continued
Dick,  "is Claude Lorraine, whom you