ry aspect on that festive day, I thought I
would pay Howland Street a visit; and, if invited, eat my Christmas
dinner with Clive.

I found my friend at home, and at work still, in spite of the day. He
had promised a pair of pictures to a dealer for the morrow. "He pays me
pretty well, and I want all the money he will give me, Pen," the painter
said, rubbing on at his canvas. "I am pretty easy in my mind since I
have become acquainted with a virtuous dealer. I sell myself to him,
body and soul, for some half-dozen pounds a week. I know I can get my
money, and he is regularly supplied with his pictures. But for Rosey's
illness we might carry on well enough."

Rosey's illness? I was sorry to hear of that: and poor Clive, entering
into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors rather more than
a fourth of his year's earnings. "There is a solemn fellow, to whom the
women have taken a fancy, who lives but a few doors off in Gower Street;
and who, for his last sixteen visits, has taken sixteen pounds sixteen
shillings out of my pocket, and as if guineas grew there, with the most
admirable gravity. He talks the fashions to my mother-in-law. My poor
wife hangs on every word he says. Look! There is his carriage coming up
now! and there is his fee, confound him!" says Clive, casting a rueful
look towards a little packet lying upon the mantelpiece, by the side
of that skinned figure in plaster of Paris which we have seen in most
studios.

I looked out of window and saw a certain Fashionable Doctor tripping out
of his chariot; that Ladies' Delight, who has subsequently migrated from
Bloomsbury to Belgravia; and who has his polite foot now in a thousand
nurseries and boudoirs. What Confessors were in old times, Quackenboss
and his like are in our Protestant country. What secrets they know! into
what mystic chambers do they not enter! I suppose the Campaigner made
a special toilette to receive her fashionable friend, for that lady
attired in considerable splendour, and with the precious jewel on her
head, which I remembered at Boulogne, came into the studio two minutes
after the Doctor's visit was announced, and made him a low curtsey. I
cannot describe the overpowering civilities of that woman.

Clive was very gracious and humble to her. He adopted a lively air in
addressing her--"Must work, you know, Christmas Day and all--for the
owner of the pictures will call for them in the morning. Bring me a good
report about Rose