d the kindly artist. Vance knew the
world,--knew the peculiar temptations to which a young man in Lionel's
position would be exposed,--knew that contempt for economy belongs to
that school of Peripatetics which reserves its last lessons for finished
disciples in the sacred walks of the Queen's Bench.

However, that was no auspicious moment for didactic warnings.

"Here we are!" cried Lionel,--"Putney Bridge."

They reached the little inn by the river-side, and while dinner was
getting ready they hired a boat. Vance took the oars.

VANCE.--"Not so pretty here as by those green quiet banks along which we
glided, at moonlight, five years ago."

LIONEL.--"Ah, no! And that innocent, charming child, whose portrait you
took,--you have never heard of her since?"

VANCE.--"Never! How should I? Have you?"

LIONEL.--"Only what Darrell repeated to me. His lawyer had ascertained
that she and her grandfather had gone to America. Darrell gently implied
that, from what he learned of them, they scarcely merited the interest I
felt in their fate. But we were not deceived, were we, Vance?"

VANCE--"No; the little girl--what was her name? Sukey? Sally? Sophy,
true--Sophy had something about her extremely prepossessing, besides her
pretty face; and, in spite of that horrid cotton print, I shall never
forget it."

LIONEL--"Her face! Nor I. I see it still before me!"

VANCE--"Her cotton print! I see it still before me! But I must not be
ungrateful. Would you believe it,--that little portrait, which cost me
three pounds, has made, I don't say my fortune, but my fashion?"

LIONEL--"How! You had the heart to sell it?"

VANCE.--"No; I kept it as a study for young female heads--'with
variations,' as they say in music. It was by my female heads that I
became the fashion; every order I have contains the condition, 'But be
sure, one of your sweet female heads, Mr. Vance.' My female heads are
as necessary to my canvas as a white horse to Wouvermans'. Well, that
child, who cost me three pounds, is the original of them all. Commencing
as a Titania, she has been in turns a 'Psyche,' a 'Beatrice-Cenci,'
a 'Minna,' 'A Portrait of a Nobleman's Daughter,' 'Burns's Mary in
Heaven,' 'The Young Gleaner,' and 'Sabrina Fair,' in Milton's 'Comus.'
I have led that child through all history, sacred and profane. I have
painted her in all costumes (her own cotton print excepted). My female
heads are my glory; even the 'Times' critic allows that! 'Mr. Vanc