t
the same time, I sensibly guarded against even the most improbable
accidents, by making him pay me the fifty pounds as we went on, by
installments. We had ten sittings. Each one of them began with a message
from Mr. Batterbury, giving me Annabella's love and apologies for not
being able to come and see me. Each one of them ended with an argument
between Mr. Batterbury and me relative to the transfer of five pounds
from his pocket to mine. I came off victorious on every occasion--being
backed by the noble behavior of Lady Malkinshaw, who abstained from
tumbling down, and who ate and drank, and slept and grew lusty, for
three weeks together. Venerable woman! She put fifty pounds into my
pocket. I shall think of her with gratitude and respect to the end of
my days.

One morning, while I was sitting before my completed portrait, inwardly
shuddering over the ugliness of it, a suffocating smell of musk was
wafted into the studio; it was followed by a sound of rustling
garments; and that again was succeeded by the personal appearance of my
affectionate sister, with her husband at her heels. Annabella had got to
the end of her stock of apologies, and had come to see me.

She put her handkerchief to her nose the moment she entered the room.

"How do you do, Frank? Don't kiss me: you smell of paint, and I can't
bear it."

I felt a similar antipathy to the smell of musk, and had not the
slightest intention of kissing her; but I was too gallant a man to
say so; and I only begged her to favor me by looking at her husband's
portrait.

Annabella glanced all round the room, with her handkerchief still at
her nose, and gathered her magnificent silk dress close about her superb
figure with her disengaged hand.

"What a horrid place!" she said faintly behind her handkerchief. "Can't
you take some of the paint away? I'm sure there's oil on the floor. How
am I to get past that nasty table with the palette on it? Why can't you
bring the picture down to the carriage, Frank?"

Advancing a few steps, and looking suspiciously about her while she
spoke, her eyes fell on the chimney-piece. An eau-de-Cologne bottle
stood upon it, which she took up immediately with a languishing sigh.

It contained turpentine for washing brushes in. Before I could warn her,
she had sprinkled herself absently with half the contents of the bottle.
In spite of all the musk that now filled the room, the turpentine
betrayed itself almost as soon as I cried "S