uch more so. If I do not marry Lily, I shall never marry at
all, and if anybody were to tell me to-morrow that she had made up
her mind to have me, I should well nigh go mad for joy. But I am not
going to give up all my life for love. Indeed the less I can bring
myself to give up for it, the better I shall think of myself. Now
I'll go away and call on old Lady Demolines."

"And flirt with her daughter."

"Yes;--flirt with her daughter, if I get the opportunity. Why
shouldn't I flirt with her daughter?"

"Why not, if you like it?"

"I don't like it,--not particularly, that is; because the young lady
is not very pretty, nor yet very graceful, not yet very wise."

"She is pretty after a fashion," said the artist, "and if not wise,
she is at any rate clever."

"Nevertheless, I do not like her," said John Eames.

"Then why do you go there?"

"One has to be civil to people though they are neither pretty nor
wise. I don't mean to insinuate that Miss Demolines is particularly
bad, or indeed that she is worse than young ladies in general. I only
abused her because there was an insinuation in what you said, that I
was going to amuse myself with Miss Demolines in the absence of Miss
Dale. The one thing has nothing to do with the other thing. Nothing
that I shall say to Miss Demolines will at all militate against my
loyalty to Lily."

"All right, old fellow;--I didn't mean to put you on your purgation.
I want you to look at that sketch. Do you know for whom it is
intended?" Johnny took up a scrap of paper, and having scrutinised it
for a minute or two declared that he had not the slightest idea who
was represented. "You know the subject,--the story that is intended
to be told?" said Dalrymple.

"Upon my word I don't. There's some old fellow seems to be catching
it over the head; but it's all so confused I can't make much of it.
The woman seems to be uncommon angry."

"Do you ever read your Bible?"

"Ah dear! not as often as I ought to do. Al, I see; it's Sisera. I
never could quite believe that story. Jael might have killed Captain
Sisera in his sleep,--for which, by-the-by, she ought to have been
hung, and she might possibly have done it with a hammer and a nail.
But she could not have driven it through, and staked him to the
ground."

"I've warrant enough for putting it into a picture, at any rate. My
Jael there is intended for Miss Van Siever."

"Miss Van Siever! Well, it is like her. Has she sat for it?"

"