ediately to a close examination of the picture.

'I told you, sir, I should only paint portraits if I were compelled!'
said the young man, in a proud, muffled voice. He began to gather up
his things and clean his palette.

'But of course you'll be compelled--unless you wish to die "clemmed,"
as we say in Lancashire,' returned the other, briskly. 'What do _you_
say, mamma?'

He turned towards his wife, pushing up his spectacles to look at her.
He was a tall man, a little bent at the shoulders from long years of
desk-work; and those who saw him for the first time were apt to be
struck by a certain eager volatility of aspect--expressed by the
small head on its thin neck, by the wavering blue eyes, and smiling
mouth--not perhaps common in the chief cashiers of country banks.

As his wife met his appeal to her, the slight habitual furrow on her
own brow deepened. She saw that her husband held a newspaper crushed
in his right hand, and that his whole air was excited and restless. A
miserable, familiar pang passed through her. As the chief and
trusted official of an old-established bank in one of the smaller
cotton-towns, Mr. Morrison had a large command of money. His wife had
suspected him for years of using bank funds for the purposes of his
own speculations. She had never dared to say a word to him on the
subject, but she lived in terror--being a Calvinist by nature and
training--of ruin here, and Hell hereafter.

Of late, some instinct told her that he had been forcing the pace; and
as she turned to him, she felt certain that he had just received some
news which had given him great pleasure, and she felt certain also
that it was news of which he ought rather to have been ashamed.

She drew herself together in a dumb recoil. Her hands trembled as she
put down her knitting.

'I'd be sorry if a son of mine did nothing but paint portraits.'

John Fenwick looked up, startled.

'Why?' laughed her husband.

'Because it often seems to me,' she said, in a thin, measured
voice, 'that a Christian might find a better use for his time than
ministering to the vanity of silly girls, and wasting hours and hours
on making a likeness of this poor body, that's of no real matter to
anybody.'

'You'd make short work of art and artists, my dear!' said Morrison,
throwing up his hands. 'You forget, perhaps, that St. Luke was a
painter?'

'And where do you get that from, Mr. Morrison, I'd like to ask?' said
his wife, slowly; 'it's