arangue him
seriously, by way of not letting the reformed rake relapse for want of
a little encouraging admonition of the moral sort. Nor was Mr. Yollop at
all behindhand in taking similar precautions to secure the new convert
permanently, after having once caught him. Every word these two
gentlemen spoke only served to harden the lad afresh, and to deaden the
reproving and reclaiming influence of his mother's affectionate looks
and confiding words. "I should get nothing by it, even if I _could_ turn
over a new leaf;" thought Zack, shrewdly and angrily, when his father
or his father's friend favored him with a little improving advice: "Here
they are, worrying away again already at their pattern good boy, to make
him a better."

Such was the point at which the Tribulations of Zack had arrived, at the
period when Mr. Valentine Blyth resolved to set up a domestic Drawing
Academy in his wife's room; with the double purpose of amusing his
family circle in the evening, and reforming his wild young friend by
teaching him to draw from the "glorious Antique."

CHAPTER X. MR. BLYTH'S DRAWING ACADEMY.

When the week of delay had elapsed, and when Mrs. Blyth felt strong
enough to receive company in her room, Valentine sent the promised
invitation to Zack which summoned him to his first drawing-lesson.

The locality in which the family drawing academy was to be held deserves
a word of preliminary notice. It formed the narrow world which bounded,
by day and night alike, the existence of the painter's wife.

By throwing down a partition-wall, Mrs. Blyth's room had been so
enlarged, as to extend along the whole breadth of one side of the house,
measuring from the front to the back garden windows. Considerable as the
space was which had been thus obtained, every part of it from floor to
ceiling was occupied by objects of beauty proper to the sphere in which
they were placed: some, solid and serviceable, where usefulness
was demanded; others light and elegant, where ornament alone was
necessary--and all won gloriously by Valentine's brush; by the long,
loving, unselfish industry of many years. Mrs. Blyth's bed, like
everything else that she used in her room, was so arranged as to offer
her the most perfect comfort and luxury attainable in her suffering
condition. The framework was broad enough to include within its
dimensions a couch for day and a bed for night. Her reading easel and
work-table could be moved within reach, in