t for a few moments,
Mrs. Barton got up and turned the picture round. The two naked creatures
who were taking a dip in the quiet, sunlit pool were Olive and Mrs.
Barton; and so grotesque were the likenesses that Alice could not
refrain from laughing.

'This is monstrous! This is disgraceful, sir! How often have I forbidden
you to paint my face on any of your shameless pictures? And your
daughter, too--and just as she is coming out! Do you want to ruin us? I
should like to know what anyone would think if--' And, unable to
complete her sentence, either mentally or aloud, Mrs. Barton wheeled the
easel, on which a large picture stood, into the full light of the
window.

If Arthur had wounded the susceptibilities of his family before, he had
outraged them now. The great woman, who had gathered to her bosom one of
the doves her naked son, Cupid, had shot out of the trees with his bow
and arrow, was Olive. The white face and its high nose, beautiful as a
head by Canova is beautiful; the corn-like tresses, piled on the top of
the absurdly small head, were, beyond mistaking, Olive. Mrs. Barton
stammered for words; Olive burst into tears.

'Oh, papa! how could you disgrace me in that way? Oh, I am disgraced!
There's no use in my going to the Drawing-Room now.'

'My dear, my dear, I assure you I can change it with a flick of the
brush. Admiration carried away by idea. I promise you I'll change it.'

'Come away. Olive--come away!' said Mrs. Barton, casting a look of
burning indignation at her husband. 'If you cry like that, Olive, you
won't be fit to be looked at, and Captain Hibbert is coming here
to-night.'

When they had left the room Arthur looked inquiringly at Alice.

'This is very disagreeable,' he said; 'I really didn't think the
likeness was so marked as all that; I assure you I didn't. I must do
something to alter it--I might change the colour of the hair; but no, I
can't do that, the entire scheme of colour depends upon that. It is a
great pity, for it is one of my best things; the features I might alter,
and yet it is very hard to do so, without losing the character. I wonder
if I were to make the nose straighter. Alice, dear, would you mind
turning your head this way?'

'Oh! no, no, no, papa dear! You aren't going to put my face upon it!'
And she ran from the room smothered with laughter.

When this little quarrel was over and done, and Olive had ceased to
consider herself a disgraced girl, the allusion that