y you
had not something better to make an idol of, than a dog."

While Miss Carr was speaking to Mrs. Turner, Flora glanced round the
room, and was not a little surprised to find a pianoforte making part of
the furniture, an open drawing-box, of a very expensive kind, with
card-board and other drawing materials, occupied a side-table. These
were articles of refinement she had not expected from a man-like woman
of Miss Carr's character.

"Are you fond of drawing?" she asked, when they were once more alone.

"Passionately, my dear: I am a self-taught genius. Other people drew,
and I was determined that I would draw too. What should hinder me? I
have eyes to see, and hands to copy what pleases me; and the school from
which I derive instruction is the best in the world, and furnishes the
most perfect models--that of Nature. I never bent my mind to anything
that I wished to accomplish, and failed. But you shall judge for
yourself."

Miss Wilhelmina sprang from her seat, and bouncing into a closet, soon
returned with a large portfolio, which she placed on the table before
Flora. "There are my treasures; you can examine them at your leisure."

Flora did not expect anything delicate or beautiful, but she was
perfectly astonished, not at the skill and taste displayed in these
drawings, but at the extraordinary want of it--nothing could be worse,
or indeed so eccentrically bad. The first specimen of Miss Carr's
talents as an artist which she drew from the splendid velvet-covered
portfolio puzzled her not a little. What the picture was meant for,
Flora, for the life of her, could not tell, until glancing down to the
bottom of the sheet, she read with great difficulty the following
explanation, written in a vile hand:--

"_Portrait of the Incomparable Muff, taken while picking her bone at
breakfast._"

It was a good thing she had discovered a key to the hieroglyphic, for
Miss Carr's keen eyes were fixed intently upon her, as if they were
reading her inmost soul.

"Is it not beautiful?" she cried, anticipating Flora's admiration.

"Muff is a very pretty animal," said Flora evasively.

"Muff pretty!" exclaimed Miss Carr indignantly, "who ever thought of
insulting Muff by calling her _pretty_! She is exquisite--the perfection
of her species. I have, in that spirited picture, hit her off to the
life. Look at the action of that tail--the life-like grasp of those
paws. You might almost fancy you heard her growl over the delic