s out and drag it in. Was that illustrious voyage all
plain sailing? Sam Winnington used to draw a long sigh, and lay back his
head and close his eyes in his coach, after the rout was over. He was
not conscious of acting; he was not acting, and one might dare another,
if that other were not a cynic, to say that the motive was unworthy. He
wanted to put his sitters on a good footing with themselves; he wanted
to put the world on a good footing with itself; it was the man's nature.
He did not go very far down; he was not without his piques, and like
other good-natured men--like Will Locke, for that matter--when he was
once offended he was apt to be vindictive; but he was buoyant, and that
little man must have had a great fund of charity about him somewhere to
be drawn upon at first sight. Still this popularity was no joke. There
were other rubs. The keen love of approbation in the little man, which
was at the bottom of his suavity, was galled by the least condemnation
of his work and credit; he was too manly to enact the old man and the
ass, but successful Sam Winnington was about as soon pricked as a man
who wears a fold of silk on his breast instead of the old plate armour.

Clary had her own aggravations: with all her airs Clary was not a match
for the indomitable, unhesitating, brazen (with a golden brazenness)
women of fashion. Poor Clary had been the beauty at Redwater, the most
modish, the best informed woman there; and here, in this world of
London, to which Sam had got her an introduction, she was a nobody;
scarcely to be detected among the host of ordinary fine women, except by
Sam's reflected glory. This was a doubtful boon, an unsatisfactory rise
in the social scale. Then Clary had nobody beyond Sam to look to, and
hope and pray for: she had not even sickly children to nurse, like
Dulcie. Sam would only live to future generations in his paintings. Ah,
well! it was fortunate that Sam was a man of genius.

You may believe, for all the grand company, the coach, the cut velvet,
the laces, and the black boy, that this world was but a mighty sorry,
uneasy place to Sam and Clarissa as they rolled home over the pavement,
while Will and Dulcie slept with little betwixt them and the stars.

VII.--STRIPS SOME OF THE THORNS FROM THE HEDGE AND THE GARDEN ROSES.

Will Locke lay dying. One would have thought, from his tranquillity,
confidence, and love of work, even along with spare diet, that he would
have lived long. B