lled you a mere portrait-painter, Sam," continued the dying man; "I
refused to acknowledge your inspiration, and I knew better: I saw that
to you was granted the discernment to read the human face and the soul
behind it, as to me it was given to hold converse with nature and the
subtle essence of good and evil. Most painters before you have painted
masks; but yours are the clothings of immortals: and your flesh is
wonderful, Sam--how you have perfected it! And it is not true what they
tell you of your draperies: you are the only man alive who can render
them picturesque and not absurd, refined and not stinted. You were a
genteel fellow, too, from the beginning, and would no more do a dirty
action when you had only silver coins to jingle in your pockets, than
now when they are stuffed with gold moidores."

"Oh, Will, Will!" cried Sam, desperately bowing his head; "I have done
little for you."

"Man!" cried Will, with a kingly incredulity, "what could you do for me?
I wanted nothing. I was withdrawn somewhat from my proper field, to
mould and colour for daily bread; but Dulcie saved me many a wasted
hour, and I could occupy the period of a mechanical job in
conceiving--no, in marshalling my visions. Mine was a different, an
altogether higher line than yours, Sam; you will forgive me if I have
told you too abruptly," and the poverty-stricken painter, at his last
gasp, looked deprecatingly at his old honoured associate.

But he was too far gone for ceremony; he was too near release for pain.
He had even shaken hands with the few family cares he was capable of
experiencing, and had commended Dulcie to Sam Winnington without a
single doubt. He felt, like Gainsborough, that they were all going to
heaven, and Vandyke was in the company. Where was the room for
misunderstanding now! Here was the end of strife, and the conclusion of
the whole matter. Some other sentences Will spoke before his parting
breath; and when his hearers heard him murmuring the word "garment,"
they fancied he still raved of his calling--on to the end. But his mind
had turned and taken refuge in another calling, and it was in reference
to it that he quoted the fragment of a verse, "And besought him that
they might touch if it were but the border of his garment; and as many
as touched him were made whole." "Sam, have you put forth your hand?"

Thus Will Locke departed rejoicing. Dulcie, a thin forlorn widow woman,
talked with a lingering echo of his eleva