rk at home
hereafter."

II

The prospect of pursuing artistic studies at home was not brilliant,
as one may imagine when I mention that Psyche's father was a painfully
prosaic man, wrapt in flannel, so to speak; for his woollen mills left
him no time for anything but sleep, food, and newspapers. Mrs. Dean
was one of those exasperating women who pervade their mansions like
a domestic steam-engine one week and take to their sofas the next,
absorbed by fidgets and foot-stoves, shawls and lamentations. There
were three riotous and robust young brothers, whom it is unnecessary
to describe except by stating that they were _boys_ in the broadest
sense of that delightful word. There was a feeble little sister, whose
patient, suffering face demanded constant love and care to mitigate
the weariness of a life of pain. And last, but not least by any means,
there were two Irish ladies, who, with the best intentions imaginable,
produced a universal state of topsy-turviness when left to themselves
for a moment.

But being very much in earnest about doing her duty, not because it
_was_ her duty, but as a means toward an end, Psyche fell to work with
a will, hoping to serve both masters at once. So she might have done,
perhaps, if flesh and blood had been as plastic as clay, but the live
models were so exacting in their demands upon her time and strength,
that the poor statues went to the wall. Sculpture and sewing, calls
and crayons, Ruskin and receipt-books, didn't work well together, and
poor Psyche found duties and desires desperately antagonistic. Take a
day as a sample.

"The washing and ironing are well over, thank goodness, mother quiet,
the boys out of the way, and May comfortable, so I'll indulge myself
in a blissful day after my own heart," Psyche said, as she shut
herself into her little studio, and prepared to enjoy a few hours of
hard study and happy day-dreams.

With a book on her lap, and her own round white arm going through all
manner of queer evolutions, she was placidly repeating, "Deltoides,
Biceps, Triceps, Pronator, Supinator, Palmanis, Flexor carpi
ulnaris--"

"Here's Flexis what-you-call-ums for you," interrupted a voice, which
began in a shrill falsetto and ended in a gruff bass, as a flushed,
dusty, long-legged boy burst in, with a bleeding hand obligingly
extended for inspection.

"Mercy on us, Harry! what have you done to yourself now? Split your
fingers with a cricket-ball again?" cried Psych