always said-and she knew everything -that it is horribly underbred to fancy impropriety where none exists. I can't live without admirers, unless I shut myself up for the whole of the season. What does a woman dress for? why does she show herself in public, unless she means to be looked at? But I'm as silly as poor Patience herself, to trouble my head with her vulgar notions."

Patty's thoughts went off to plan, first, the dress in which she should receive Paul, and then how she should dispose of Miss Coppock, so that she might not be present during the first interview with him.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE FIRST SITTING.

THERE are, and always will be, plenty of people who do not believe in presentiments of either coming joy or evil; but Nuna was not one of these sceptics; and after she had kissed Paul and watched him from the window till he was out of sight, she felt oppressed to sadness with a vague sense of trouble. Paul was never very communicative, and he had taken an instinctive dislike to Mr. Downes, and, man-like, he kept his dislikes to himself: he purposely avoided any mention of his visit to Park Lane. So when he left Nuna on the morning he had fixed for the first sitting, he only said, "I have one or two places to go to to-day-don't wait dinner, darling."

There was nothing in this to depress her; she was accustomed to see him go away for hours. Mr. Pritchard had not come back from Spain, but Paul had plenty of artist friends, and he often painted away from home. There had been a group of horses in his last picture, and these he had been obliged to study from at their stables; but that had been for his Academy picture, and Nuna knew it had been sent in.

She tried to occupy herself in painting: she had made great progress lately, but she could not concentrate her mind on her work this morning. She was

following Paul in spirit, and the load at her heart grew heavier every hour.

When Paul reached Mr. Downes's, he was struck with the evident care that had been taken in receiving him. The room into which he was shown was in the same style as the writingroom, but the colouring was more subdued; it was chiefly white and gold, with an occasional admixture of scarlet. The curtains were in scarlet velvet, and Paul noted approvingly that the shutters of one window had been closed so as to avoid any crossing of light. also saw that the canvas he had ordered to be sent was carefully placed on an easel, and that a chair had been raised so as to imitate the arrangement in his own studio.

He

"Ah, Mrs. Downes knows something, she has been painted before; well, so much the better: she will know how to sit."

A closed photograph case lay on one of the small tables, and Paul stretched out his hand for it lazily, as he sat leaning back in one of the easy chairs. Patty had placed it there herself. She wanted Paul to be prepared to see her; but she had counted on quicker movements on his part. Before he had got the case open she came into the room.

Paul rose, and then stood still; he did not bow or speak, but his blood rushed up in tumult to his face; he was stunned by this unexpected meeting.

His eyes were fixed on Patty; she, too, stood motionless: she had not been able quite to plan her part, but she took it at once from him. Her eyes drooped; her whole attitude became dejected, and at last she looked up with a timid, imploring sweetness.

"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Whitmore; won't you shake hands?"

The words came so tenderly, so softly, that Paul's anger seemed to be slipping away. He tried hard to keep it; he saw that she was more beautiful than ever, and he frowned.

"I ought to have been told," he said. "I was afraid." Patty spoke sorrowfully-except for the changed accent,

she might have been Patty Westropp. There was the drooping head, the childlike voice, and the little hands were pressed plaintively together. "I thought if you knew it was me, you wouldn't have come." She looked with such a helpless pleading in her sweet blue eyes, that Paul felt their old power coming over him. He still fought against it, and answered almost audibly,

No, I don't think I should."

"And then," she went on in the same soft imploring tone, "I could not be sure you would recognize me. I thought you might have forgotten all about me; I am so altered, am I notso aged?"

She looked up at this and spoke impressively, as if to remind him of her changed position. Paul bowed, with a sort of scorn in his deference.

"Yes, you are altered; but you could scarcely think I could forget you."

He went up to the easel, and looked at the canvas.

"Is my dress the sort of thing you like?" said Mrs. Downes.

But Paul did not even look round at her he stood thinking.

"Your dress is of little consequence to-day, so far as its colour is concerned," he said at last, "but I don't think I will paint you."

The colour sprang to Patty's face. "Oh, please do ;" she spoke imploringly, without any of her newly gained repose of manner; "it is my husband's wish that you should paint me; what will he think?"

She looked so humble, so sweet, so utterly unlike the false Patty he had so long pictured, that Paul's impulses made him yield while he thought he was yielding to Mrs. Downes's arguments.

It was an entirely false position, but he must make the best of it; after all, it was perhaps better to show Patty how indifferent he felt.

had gone back to her old playful manner, "why need you be so dreadfully industrious? Don't be in such a hurry to begin; we haven't had a bit of talk; I haven't even asked after Mrs. Whitmore."

Mrs. Downes felt horribly piqued. She fancied her beauty would assert its old magic over Paul, and instead of any devotion, he was treating her like a culprit. He did not seem at all impressed by the state of life in which he found her.

"I must make him feel it," she said to herself; "I won't submit to insolence, even from him.”

"How is Mrs. Whitmore?" she said, politely.

Paul was conscious of a change in her manner; he was vexed to have betrayed his own vexation: he smiled, and tried to speak in a more natural voice.

"Thank you, she is quite well; but you must excuse me if I ask you to sit. I have no time to lose-you forget that I am only a rising artist, and have still to work hard for my living." He emphasized the word "I," and then felt himself silly.

Patty was relieved; Paul did still care for her; he must, or he would be more at ease, more indifferent. She answered, as simply as if she had not felt the sting under his words—

"Are you really? I'm so sorry: I never thought of you as being obliged to work hard; I looked upon you as a gentleman who followed art more as an amusement than anything else; but indeed I'll be careful not to waste your time now."

Almost without any help from Paul she placed herself so that it seemed impossible to improve on her attitude. It did not occur to the artist that this happy easy grace was the result of study, and that Mrs. Downes had spent hours in deciding how she would be painted -he only saw a fresh beauty in it: he despised Patty from the bottom of his heart, but he thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The past year and a half had matured and perfected her loveliness: she had gained so much, too, in expression; she had, as a Frenchwoman would say, so much

:

more physiognomy, and yet she had not surrendered one physical charm. Even in the arrangement of her rich chestnut hair, the natural irregular wave which had given so much wild grace to it in former times was preserved. Patty rather bent fashion to serve her beauty than yielded herself up to its trammels. Her dress this morning suited her exactly it was a striped blue and white silk; she had felt sure it would not paint well, but she preferred to give Mr. Whitmore the opportunity of advising and directing her taste. Miss Coppock was possibly right when she said she had had a larger experience in dealing with men than Mrs. Downes had; but experience can never match the instinctive quickness and artistic power of such a nature as Patty's. She read Paul's mood truly, and she saw that for the present at least he must be left to himself.

So the sitting progressed silently enough: "A little more to the rightthank you," froin the artist, and sometimes, "Do I keep still enough—are you sure I do?" from the sitter, and then his thanks.

Every now and then Mrs. Downes stole a glance at Paul. How rapt he was in his work he frowned slightly, but more as if he were concentrating straying thoughts than as if he were

angry.

"Is he happy, I wonder? Why did he marry-how could he marry without money?" Patty gave a little shudder as she summoned up the picture of a poor artist's home. Poverty among folk of the class from which she herself sprang did not seem a hardship to Mrs. Downes. She told herself that the shrinking she had felt from poor, mean ways was a sure proof she had always been intended for a higher position. "I know I was a lady born," was an axiom she loved to repeat. Poor people, as poor people, ought to be content with their lot, she thought, but poverty to a man like Paul Whitmore must be dreadful-so lowering and debasing; for, to Patty, the possession of wealth was in itself a sort of brevet rank, and No. 141.-VOL. XXIV.

those who had not got it were only pretenders when they aspired to equality with rich people. There was quite a criminal presumption in such refinement and uppishness as she remembered at Ashton Rectory, considering that Mr. Beaufort could not even afford a carriage or a saddle-horse for his daughter.

Her feelings against Nuna took their old bitterness as she looked at Paul. In the excitement of her own hurried marriage-hurried because she feared her father might gain knowledge of her proceedings-in her triumphant exaltation at the state and splendour to which she saw her husband was habituated, and also in her satisfaction at the easy sway she held over him, Mrs. Downes had forgiven the Rector's daughter for marrying Paul Whitmore. There was a tender corner in her heart where she pleased herself with thinking he still dwelt, but she had not counted on seeing him again, and when she thought of him it was with a sort of regretful pity for the mistake he had made in marrying Nuna Beaufort.

But the sight of her old lover had stirred Patty strangely, stirred the atmosphere of worldliness that was around her glancing at him as she sat there alone in his presence, feeling that presence nearer from the almost oppressive silence, a throb rose in Patty's bosom -a throb of wild, sudden anguish. She stifled the sigh in which it showed itself, and in a moment she looked as calm and sweet as the face rapidly taking shape on the canvas.

But this stifling brought pain with it, and Patty had no notion of bearing her own quota of pain: if she suffered, some one else must bear the penalty, and at that moment she hated Nuna with an intensity that De Mirancourt would have stigmatized as low-bred. It seemed to Patty, in the sudden passion of her soul, that Nuna had taken Paul and his love from her. "I had him first! What right had she to come between us?"

She gave another quick, sidelong glance, her eyes glowing with the mingled passions she could not keep out of

them. Till now she had seen Paul's face in profile, his eyes bent on his work; but this time their gaze met fully.

Paul looked away as suddenly and sharply as if he had seen something loathsome.

"May

There was a tap at the door. I come in?"-but Mr. Downes did not attempt to enter until his wife's soft voice answered.

Then he came in, and wished Mr. Whitmore good morning in an unctuous, benevolent voice-a voice that seemed to say, "My good fellow, I'm so sorry that you have to earn your own bread, that I must show you my compassion somehow."

He placed himself directly between the artist and Patty, and peered at the canvas through his eyeglass.

"Capital! really, do you know, you've quite caught that pose of the head which is peculiar to my wife. Upon my word I think, if you go on as you have begun, that you'll make something of this picture, Mr. Whitmore."

"I hope so."

Patty saw the curl on Paul's lip, and she writhed in silence. How insignificant her husband was in her eyes! For the first time since her rise in life Mrs. Downes realized that there are things unpurchaseable by money.

"I should have preferred the full face being represented." Mr. Downes was still scrutinizing the sketch through his eyeglass, his under-lip pursed up, and his head on one side. "I suppose it's easy enough to alter, Mr. Whitmore; what do you think, Elinor, eh?"

Paul glanced up suddenly at the unusual name: a dim glimmering came to him that Mr. Downes was ignorant of his wife's early history.

"Mr. Whitmore must know best," Patty said, much more to Paul than to her husband.

"Well, I don't know. We should always try to have the best even of a good thing. I'm sure Mr. Whitmore will agree with me in thinking that I must know the best view of your face, and every turn and variety of your expression, better than he can, on such

very recent acquaintance. I don't mean to say it makes as much difference in your case as it would in that of others.” Mr. Downes's smile made the words a compliment.

Patty was thankful that she might cast down her eyes and blush at praise before a stranger. She could not help blushing; she felt very disconcerted: her husband's words had told to Paul all that she least wanted him to knowthat she had been false and deceitful, and had concealed her early history; and that moreover, if Paul chose to speak, he might ruin her for ever with her purse-proud, punctilious husband.

She was too much confused to listen to Mr. Downes's next words, but she saw that Paul was gathering his materials together. She longed to escape, but she dared not just then leave Mr. Whitmore alone with her husband. It was an unspeakable relief when Paul went away.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"It is well to be off with the old love before you are on with the new."

PAUL had hardly thought at all while he remained in Patty's morning-room.

At any time the very violence of his impulses made concentrated thought a slow process; feeling had to be given time. to subside before judgment could begin to act. When he saw Patty he felt the need of immediate self-control, and he sought it by throwing himself into his work with a strength that might have been impossible to an inferior man. But Paul was a true Artist. He had chosen to follow Art, not only because he loved it and as a means of livelihood, but because it was embodied in him, it was his mode of speech for the gift he found within him; he worshipped Art as an abstract reality, and now in this moment of need his devotion stood him in good stead; he found himself armed against Patty and her attempts at reconciliation.

But outside the house, fairly on the way to his own home, the charm was

over.

A feeling of strong indignation against Patty, against her husband, and against himself for having submitted to such a false position, flamed up.

"I am a fool, a weak irresolute fool! Just because I had the canvas there and everything ready, to let myself be led on to do that which I believe to be absolutely wrong. I'll throw the thing up; by what that simpleton said he knows nothing of his wife's beginnings, and of course she expects me to connive at her deceit." He gave a shudder here. "What a false creature she has been all through ;" and then his thoughts went over the past. A deep sigh came, a sigh of relief, of thankfulness; he had been contrasting Nuna and Mrs. Downes; and Patty's conduct grew blacker in his eyes.

"Well, she has got her punishment in a man like that; one would not wish her worse off: it's easy to see that he is a slave to conventionalities and forms of all sorts. Her life must be a perpetual subterfuge: if he ever does find her out, I don't envy her. I should not like to be the woman dependent on Mr. Downes's clemency. Poor little Patty: what a fate!" Under this new light Paul Whitmore's heart softened; he had been very hard on her after all; it was not fair to judge her by Nuna's standard. Patty's trial had been so exceptional that it could hardly be judged by ordinary rules; it was plain she did not love her husband, but under her peculiar circumstances an early marriage must have been a necessity.

"She could not possibly have stayed with that miserly old father. Poor girl! with another man she might have had a chance."

Paul did not tell himself that Patty still loved him; he would not allow himself to dwell for an instant on the look which he had surprised in her eyes; but a strong feeling rose in his heart and quieted away his anger, a feeling of pity for the beautiful wife of "that old fool," as he termed Mr. Downes, and a resolution that he would not paint her portrait.

"And I will say nothing to Nuna about the matter; she behaved nobly when I told her of my folly with Patty, but women are all alike on one point, they are never quite easy about a man's previous love unless she is older and uglier: and it is not from jealousy either -rather in such a nature as Nuna's it would be from her humble notion of herself; she would feel completely inferior to Patty now. No, I shall say nothing about it. I shall write and get out of the whole affair, and there's an end of it. We are not likely to meet these Downeses; Nuna dislikes grand parties as much as I do, and the Downeses only visit swells, of course."

A load rolled off Paul's heart at this resolution, and yet it was the first time since their marriage that he had resolved to keep anything from Nuna,-her frankness had so far won him from his habitual reserve.

In his impulse to prove Nuna's superiority to Patty-it may be as a shield against the remembrance of that passionate glance, a shield which, if his love for his wife had been full and perfect, he never would have neededPaul quite forgot that he had told. Nuna not to expect him till evening.

He went on fast to St. John Street, impatient to be with his wife, and to show her that he truly valued her love and her truth; it seemed to him they had never shone out so brightly as they did in contrast with Patty's deceit. "Sweet, truthful little darling!" he said to himself.

He went softly upstairs that he might enjoy her eager look of delight at his unexpected appearance.

A sound of scrubbing made him pause. He opened the door.

He looked down on a face upturned to him-a face with a strong resemblance to a King Charles' spaniel; large dark eyes, a pug nose, and a bunch of black curls on each side of the face: here the canine likeness ended, except that, as the body belonging to the face was on all-fours, the attitude might be called in keeping. A black gown was tucked tightly round this anomalous