When Laurie left Mr. Welby’s studio he had not, however, satisfied himself either with No. 375, Fitzroy Square, or with the advice on art subjects which he had come to seek. Old Forrester replied to his inquiry if Mrs. Severn was at home with a benevolent smile:—‘It ain’t often as she’s anywhere else, sir,’ said that authority. ‘I never see such a lady to work,—and a-singing at it, as if it was pleasure. Them’s the sort, Mr. Renton, for my money,’ the old man added with enthusiasm. ‘Master, he’s ready to swear at it sometimes, which ain’t consistent with art.’

‘Don’t you think so?’ said Laurie. ‘But when art becomes a passion, you know——’

‘I don’t hold with passion,’ said Forrester. ‘It stands to reason, Mr. Renton, that a thing as is to hang for ages and ages on a wall, didn’t ought to have no violence about it. I hate to see them poor things a-hurting of themselves for centuries. You look at ’em, sir,’ he added, pointing to an old picture, in{v.1-249} which the action was somewhat violent, which hung in the hall; ‘they couldn’t do that nohow, not if they were paid millions for it. Me and Shaw was talking it over the last time he was here. I don’t hold with that sort of passion, not in a picture. And I don’t always hold with master himself, Mr. Renton, between you and me. He’s been swearing hawful, sir, over that poor tibbie there. And what business has any man, sir, to have his tibbie in such a hattitude? It’s hoisted right round, nigh out of its socket. I wouldn’t do it, not for no money, if it was me.’

‘But you have no such fault to find with Mrs. Severn,’ said Laurie, who, in the impatience of youthful criticism, had made a similar observation to himself.

‘Bless you, sir, there’s never nothing out of harmony in them groups,’ said Forrester; ‘and easy, too, to tell why. Not as I’m a-making light of her heye; she’s got a fine heye for a lady, sir,—in composition;—but, seeing it’s her own little things as is the models, would she put ’em in hattitudes to hurt ’em, Mr. Renton? You may take your oath as a lady wouldn’t. Master, he pays his models, and he don’t care. Will you walk up, or will I go and say you’re here?’

‘I think I may go without being announced,’ said Laurie, who was a little proud of the petites entrées, though it was only to a humble house. As he went up the great, dingy staircase he put his{v.1-250} fingers lightly through his hair, and looked with some dismay at the limp pinkness of the rose in his button-hole. It was hanging its head, as roses will when they feel the approach of frost in the air. There is a curious dinginess, which is not displeasing, in those old-fashioned houses. The walls were painted in a faint grey-green; the big stairs had a narrow Turkey carpet, very much worn, upon them, and went winding up the whole height of the house to a pale skylight in the roof. A certain size, and subdued sense, of airiness, and quiet, and space was in the house, though London raged all around, like a great battle. The arrangement of the first floor was much like that of Mr. Welby’s apartments. There was a great shadowy, dingy drawing-room, with three vast windows, always filled with a kind of pale twilight,—for it was the shady side of the Square,—and opening from that, by folding-doors, a second room, which did duty as Mrs. Severn’s dining-room; and behind that, again, the studio. The door of the dining-room was open, and Laurie paused, and went half in as he passed. The children were there with their daily governess, who was, poor soul! almost at the end of her labours. She was struggling hard to keep their attention to the last half of the last hour when the intruder’s head thrust in at the door made further control impossible. There were two small boys, under ten, and one little creature with golden locks, seated at the feet of the eldest of the family, who was working at the window.{v.1-251} ‘Alice, with her curls,’ was almost too big for Miss Hadley’s teaching. She was seated in that demure, soft dignity of the child-woman, with all the importance of an elder sister, working at little Edith’s frock; a girl who rarely said anything, but thought the more; not beautiful, for her features were not regular, but with lovely, thoughtful brown eyes, and a complexion so sweet in its varying colour that it felt like a quality of the heart, and one loved her for it. Her curls were what most people of the outside world knew her by. In these days of crée locks and elaborate hair-dressing, Alice’s soft, silken, perfect curls, nestling about her pretty neck, softly shed behind her ears, were distinction enough for any girl. They were chestnut,—that chestnut, with the gold in it, which comes next to everybody’s favourite colour in everybody’s estimation;—and there was a silken gloss upon them which was old-fashioned, but very sweet to see, once in a way. She sat,—in the perfectly unobtrusive dress of modern girlhood; simple frock up to the throat, little white frill, tiny gold locket, without even a ribbon on her hair,—against the afternoon light in the window, just raising her eyes with a smile in them to Laurie, and lifting up one slender finger by way of warning. ‘Mamma is in the studio,’ said Alice, under her breath. He thought he had never seen a prettier picture than that little interior he had peeped into. Miss Hadley was not bad-looking, Laurie decided. She had keen black eyes under those deep brows,{v.1-252} and not a bad little figure. And little Frank, with such a despairing languor over his soft, round, baby face; and Edith, all crumpled up like a dropped rose by Alice’s feet; and the light slanting in through the big window, trying and failing to penetrate the dimness of the grey-green walls, all covered with pictures. Everything was in the shade, even little Edith, all overshadowed by her sister’s dress and figure;—an afternoon picture, with every tone subdued, and a touch of that weariness upon all things which comes with the waning light;—a weariness which would vanish as soon as it was dark enough to have lights, and when the hour came for the family tea.

When Laurie knocked at the studio door, he could hear, even before he was told to come in, the painter singing softly over her work, as Forrester had said. She was no musician, which, we suppose, may be understood from the fact of this singing at her work. Her voice was not good enough to be saved up for the pleasure of others, and accordingly was left free to hum a little accompaniment to her own not unmelodious life. Mrs. Severn was not a partisan of work for women, carrying out her theory, but a widow, with little children, working with the tools that came handiest to her for daily bread; and she had been accordingly adopted respectfully into a kind of comradeship by all the artists about, who had known her husband, and were ready to stand by her{v.1-253} as much as men of the same profession might. Nobody ever dreamt of thinking she was going out of her proper place, or taking illegitimate work upon her, when she took up poor Severn’s palette. There are ways of doing a thing which people do not always consider when they are actuated by strong theoretical principles. The padrona took to her work quite quietly, as if she had been born to it; did not think it any hardship; worked her regular hours like any man, and asked little advice from any one. In short, if she had a fault, it was generally believed that it was her indifference to advice. She rarely asked it, and still more rarely took it. Since the time when poor Severn died, and when she passionately explained to her friends that it was less pain to manage her own affairs than to talk them over with others, she had gone on doing everything for herself. Whether that was a wise way of proceeding it would be hard to tell; but at least it was her way. Poor Severn had not been a great painter, poor fellow; he had done very well up to a certain point, but there he had stopped; and then he had travelled about a great deal with his family, and studied all the great pictures in the world, and made sketches of a great many novel customs and practices, with the view of making a new start,—‘as Phillip did.’ John Phillip, as every one knows, being an ordinary painter, went to Spain, and came home a great one; but poor Severn found no inspiration awaiting him{v.1-254} at any wayside. One of the children had been born in Florence, and one in Dresden; they were almost the only evidences that remained of those piteous wanderings and labours.

But wherever the poor fellow went, a pair of bright, observant eyes were always by his side, taking note of things which he only tried to make use of, and by degrees his wife had got possession of the pencil as it dropped out of his failing hands. Of course, her drawing would not bear examination as his would have done. He did the best he could to give her a more masculine touch, but failed. She was feeble in her anatomy, very irregular in respect to everything that was classical; but, somehow, bits of life stole upon the forlorn canvases in Fitzroy Square under her hand. ‘You may trust her for the sentiment,’ he said, poor fellow! almost with his last breath, ‘and her eye for colour; but, Welby, I’d like to see her drawing a little firmer before I leave her.’ This he was never fated to see; and Mrs. Severn’s drawing was not likely to get firmer when her teacher was gone. It was never very firm, we are bound to admit; and we are also obliged to confess, against our will, that the padrona catered a great deal for the British public in the way of pretty babies, and tender little nursery scenes. Her pictures were domestic, in the fullest sense of the word. In her best there would be the little child saying its prayers at its mother’s knee, which never fails to touch the Cockney soul;{v.1-255} and in her worse there would be baby at table breaking his mug and thrusting his spoon everywhere but where he ought. They were very pretty, and sometimes, as if by chance, they stumbled into higher ground, and caught a look, a gleam of heaven; an unconscious essay, as it were, at the English Mary and her Blessed Child, which has never yet been produced by an insular painter—only an essay—and it never had time or hope to come to more. But the British public, bless it! liked the pictures, and bought them—not for their gleams of loftier meaning, but for the exquisite painting of baby’s mug, and because the carpet under the mother’s feet was so real that you could count the threads. The painter did not ask herself particularly why her pictures became popular; she was very thankful, very glad, and took the money as a personal favour for some time, feeling that it was too good a joke. But all the freshness of the beginning was over long before the day on which Laurie knocked at the studio door. She painted now with a more swift and practised hand, but still very unequally; sometimes mere mugs and carpets, with little human dolls; and sometimes women with childr............