ncouraging, that Olive
trembled for very joy.

"Let us go to Michael, let us go to Michael," was all the happy little
woman said. So they went.

Unluckily, Michael was not himself; he had been "pestered with a
popinjay," in the "shape of a would-be connoisseur, and he was trying to
smooth his ruffled feathers, and compose himself again to solitude and
"Alcestis." His "well, what d'ye want?" was a sort of suppressed bellow,
softening down a little at sight of Olive.

"Brother," cried Miss Meliora, trying to gather up her crumbling
enthusiasm into one courageous point--"Michael, I have found out a new
genius! Look here, and say if Olive Rothesay will not make an artist!"

"Pshaw--a woman make an artist! Ridiculous!" was the answer. "Ha! don't
come near my picture. The paint's wet Get away."

And he stood, flourishing his mahl-stick and palette--looking very like
a gigantic warrior guarding the shrine of Art with shield and spear.

His poor little sister, quite confounded, tried to pick up the drawings
which had fallen on the floor, but he thundered out--"Let them alone!"
and then politely desired Meliora to quit the room.

"Very well, brother--perhaps it will be better for you to look at the
sketches another time. Come, my dear."

"Stay, I want Miss Rothesay; no one else knows how to put on that
purple chlamys properly, and I must work at drapery to-day. I am lit for
nothing else, thanks to that puppy who is just gone; confound him! I beg
your pardon, Miss Rothesay," muttered the old painter, in a slight tone
of concession, which encouraged Meliora to another gentle attack.

"Then, brother, since your day is spoiled, don't you think if you were
to look"----

"I'll look at nothing; get away with you, and leave Miss Rothesay
here--the only one of you womenkind who is fit to enter an artist's
studio."

Here Meliora slyly looked at Olive with an encouraging smile, and then,
by no means despairing of her kind-hearted mission, she vanished.

Olive, humbled and disconsolate, prepared for her voluntary duty as
Vanbrugh's lay-figure. If she had not so reverenced his genius, she
certainly would not have altogether liked the man. But her hero-worship
was so intense, and her womanly patience so all-forgiving, that she
bore his occasional strange humours almost as meekly as Meliora herself.
To-day, for the hundredth time she watched the painter's brow smooth,
and his voice soften, as upon him grew the influence of his be