an a little more over
him. There--that will do exactly." If Mrs. Broughton did not go very
quickly, he must begin to address his model on a totally different
subject, even while she was in the act of slaying Sisera.

"Have you made up your mind who is to be Sisera?" asked Mrs
Broughton.

"I think I shall put in my own face," said Dalrymple; "if Miss Van
Siever does not object.

"Not in the least," said Clara, speaking without moving her
face--almost without moving her lips.

"That will be excellent," said Mrs. Broughton. She was still quite
cheerful, and really laughed as she spoke. "Shall you like the idea,
Clara, of striking the nail right through his head?"

"Oh, yes; as well his head as another's. I shall seem to be having my
revenge for all the trouble he has given me."

There was a slight pause, and then Dalrymple spoke. "You have had
that already, in striking me right through the heart."

"What a very pretty speech! Was it not, my dear?" said Mrs. Broughton.
And then Mrs. Broughton laughed. There was something slightly
hysterical in her laugh which grated on Dalrymple's ears,--something
which seemed to tell him that at the present moment his dear friend
was not going to assist him honestly in his effort.

"Only that I should put him out, I would get up and make a curtsey,"
said Clara. No young lady could ever talk of making a curtsey for
such a speech if she supposed it to have been made in earnestness.
And Clara, no doubt, understood that a man might make a hundred such
speeches in the presence of a third person without any danger that
they would be taken as meaning anything. All this Dalrymple knew,
and began to think that he had better put down his palette and brush,
and do the work which he had before him in the most prosaic language
that he could use. He could, at any rate, succeed in making Clara
acknowledge his intention in this way. He waited still for a minute
or two, and it seemed to him that Mrs. Broughton had no intention
of piling her fagots on the present occasion. It might be that the
remembrance of her husband's ruin prevented her from sacrificing
herself in the other direction also.

"I am not very good at pretty speeches, but I am good at telling the
truth," said Dalrymple.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Broughton, still with a touch of hysterical
action in her throat. "Upon my word, Conway, you know how to praise
yourself."

"He dispraises himself most unnecessarily in denying the p