tion, of her Will's being
beyond lamentation, and of herself and her boy's being well off with
their faith in the future. Dulcie had a proud, constant presentiment in
the recesses of her woman's heart that the husband and father's good
name and merited reputation would surely find his memory out in this
world yet. She had no material possessions save a few of his gorgeous,
gruesome, hieroglyphical pictures, and what she had borrowed or
inherited of his lower cunning in tinting, a more marketable commodity
in the present mind of society.

Dulcie disposed of Will's paintings, reluctantly, realizing an
astonishing amount; astonishing, unless you take into account the fact
that his companions and contemporaries were not sure that he was a mere
madman now that he had gone from their ranks. They wished to atone for
their dislike to his vagaries by preserving some relics of the curious
handling, the grotesque imagination, the delicate taste, and the finely
accurate knowledge of vegetable and animal forms which had passed away.

Then Dulcie went back in the waggon to her old friends at Fairfax,
and, by so doing, probably saved her sole remaining child. Dulcie did
not know whether to be glad or sorry when she found that Will's boy
had no more of his father's genius than might have been derived from
her own quick talents, and neat, nice fingers. And she was comforted:
not in the sense of marrying again--oh dear, no! she cherished the
memory of her Will as a sacred thing, and through all her returning
plumpness and rosiness--for she was still a young woman--never forgot
the honour she had borne in being a great painter's wife and companion
for half-a-dozen years. Perhaps, good as she was, she grew rather to
brandish this credit in the faces of the cloth-workers and their
wives; to speak a little bigly of the galleries and the Academy, of
chiaroscuro and perspective, of which the poor ignoramuses knew
nothing: to be obstinate on her dignity, and stand out on her
gentility far before that of the attorneys' and the doctors'
wives;--and all this though she had been, as you may remember, the
least assuming of girls, the least exacting of wives. But women have
many sides to their nature, and remain puzzles--puzzles in their
virtues as in their vices; and if Dulcie were ever guilty of
ostentation, you have not to dive deep to discover that it was out of
respect to her Will--to her great, simple, single-hearted painter.

No, Will Locke