r mother's
drawing-room, Sir Joshua must have known both the young ladies. Of the
elder he painted several portraits; of the younger, but this one,
executed in 1786.

It was a natural and appropriate idea that Miss Anne's portrait should
be made in a style similar to one of her sister, as a companion
picture. Both were represented in half-length figure, wearing white
kerchiefs and broad-brimmed hats.

Those must have been pleasant sittings which gave the veteran portrait
painter Miss Anne for a subject.[17] Plainly there was a perfect
sympathy between sitter and painter. The smile the lady turns towards
the easel is as naive as that of Miss Bowles herself. She watches his
clever work with an artist's delight, and with the simple spirit of a
child.

[Footnote 17: When her father was created an earl in 1795, she became
Lady Anne.]

Nothing could be more distasteful to such a character than the
affected pose of a woman of fashion. She has dropped into a chair with
a careless grace all her own, and tells the painter she is ready. He
takes up his brush, and lo, the very essence of her smile is
transferred to his canvas.

[Illustration: THE HON. ANNE BINGHAM]

We praise the delicate rendering of the gauzy kerchief veiling her
neck, but it is far less wonderful than the delicate interpretation of
her expression. The fine sensitiveness of her nature, her lively fancy
and sense of humor, her playfulness, her coquetry, her impulsiveness,
her volatile temperament--all this we read in the shining eyes and the
smiling mouth, though no one can say how they were made to tell so
much. The signs of her birth and breeding are in every line, yet she
is something of a Bohemian too. There is a delightful sense of
camaraderie in her smile.

There is a certain portrait by Leonardo da Vinci known as the Mona
Lisa, and famous for its baffling smile. There is a tantalizing
quality about it which makes one forever wonder what the lady is
thinking about and why she is smiling. Nothing could be more in
contrast than this smile of Miss Bingham. There is no mystery in it,
but rather it takes us into her confidence in the most winning way.

The costume interests us not only as a reminder of bygone fashions,
but for its picturesqueness. The bodice is ornamented only by the big
buttons by which it is laced. A narrow belt finishes it at the waist,
with a small buckle in front.

The hair is frizzed in puffy masses about the face, escaping in