,
I waking dreamt of some transcendent shape,
A woman's--framed by opalescent shells,
Peacefully lulled by Nature's harmonies."

A day or two later he came to bring me another version which, he
explained, he thought I should "like better." This was adopted, and the
picture was christened, "The Isle's Enchantress," and described by the
following lines:--

"Wind-wafted from the sunset, o'er the swell
Of summer's slumb'rous sea, herself asleep,
Came shoreward, in her iridescent shell
Cradled, the isle's enchantress. You who keep
A drowsy watch beside her--watch her well!"

The day was approaching when, with other work, I was to show that
"Isle's Enchantress." Picture show-day they call it. Soft-soap day would
be more correct, for every artist expects his friends to give him as
much of flattery as they can find it in their consciences to give. And
as a rule consciences are elastic; a little encouragement from the
artist goes a long way, and, once he satisfies his friends that he is of
an unsuspecting nature, they will lay it on thick in the pleasantest of
ways.

To be sure the day brings its little trials too, but of those another
time.

* * * * *

It had occurred to me that some of the friends I had invited to meet my
Enchantress, might like to have a copy of Browning's lines; so I went
round one evening to 29 De Vere Gardens to ask whether he had any
objection to their being printed.

"None whatever," he said, in answer to my question.

I thanked him and added, "To be sure I want to put your name to them."

"Oh, you can't do that," he said; "they are not mine, they are yours."

"Mine! Why, you know, _I_ couldn't write verse to save my life."

"Ah, but you did; you sent me the substance and put it into blank
verse."

"Blank verse!"--Blank was my astonishment, and I felt like the man in
Moliere when he was told he had been speaking prose all his life.

Well, we sat by the fireside in that drawing-room of his and discussed
the matter, and he would have it that I was the author and that he had
only put my idea into shape.

"If I had suggested alterations in your picture," he said, "or if I had
advised you to introduce a coral-reef here and a dolphin there, would
that have justified me in signing _your_ picture?"

"No, perhaps not," I agreed, "but if you had laid on the last coat of
paint, the one the public was to see, you certainly