ar from
his usual composure of aspect as to smile--lit the fire, and
heaped plenty of coal on, to keep it alight--then sat down on his
bearskins--wriggled himself comfortably into the corner, and threw his
handkerchief over his face; chuckling gruffly for the first time since
the past night, as he put his hand in his pockets, and so accidentally
touched the lump of wax that lay in one of them.

"Now I'm all ready for the Painter-Man," growled Mat behind the
handkerchief, as he quietly settled himself to go to sleep.

CHAPTER X. THE SQUAW'S MIXTURE.

Like the vast majority of those persons who are favored by Nature with,
what is commonly termed, "a high flow of animal spirits," Zack was
liable, at certain times and seasons, to fall from the heights of
exhilaration to the depths of despair, without stopping for a moment,
by the way, at any intermediate stages of moderate cheerfulness, pensive
depression, or tearful gloom. After he had parted from his mother,
he presented himself again at Mr. Blyth's house, in such a prostrate
condition of mind, and talked of his delinquencies and their effect on
his father's spirits, with such vehement bitterness of self-reproach,
as quite amazed Valentine, and even alarmed him a little on the lad's
account. The good-natured painter was no friend to contrite desperation
of any kind, and no believer in repentance, which could not look
hopefully forward to the future, as well as sorrowfully back at
the past. So he laid down his brush, just as he was about to begin
varnishing the "Golden Age;" and set himself to console Zack, by
reminding him of all the credit and honor he might yet win, if he was
regular in attending to his new studies--if he never flinched from work
at the British Museum, and the private Drawing School to which he was
immediately to be introduced--and if he ended as he well might end, in
excusing to his father his determination to be an artist, by showing
Mr. Thorpe a prize medal, won by the industry of his son's hand in the
Schools of the Royal Academy.

A necessary characteristic of people whose spirits are always running
into extremes, is that they are generally able to pass from one change
of mood to another with unusual facility. By the time Zack had exhausted
Mr. Blyth's copious stores of consolation, had partaken of an excellent
and plentiful hot lunch, and had passed an hour up stairs with the
ladies, he predicted his own reformation just as confidently a