that this was only laying the ground work, and that on the morrow it would be a much merrier business.

The next day I was there again after an early dinner. In the forenoon I was with my chief at the office. Thus before dinner I was a lawyer, and after dinner I was artist, poet, and reciter.

This time there was no company. The picture proceeded briskly, and the members of the family were allowed to come in from time to time, one by one, and have a peep at it.

I had now begun to study the face more in detail. It was an interesting head. The face was almost heart-shaped, terminating below in a little chin which was delicately divided by a single dimple. There were spiral-like lips of dazzling red enamel; a slightly retroussé nose, with vibrating nostrils; round, rosy-red cheeks, with little beauty spots here[Pg 20] and there, which I christened "black stars in the ruddy dawning heavens!" Her densely thick hair curled naturally, and gleamed like golden enamel, diminishing, after the manner of Phidias' ideal Venus, the smoothest of foreheads, and fluttering the most roguish of little ringlets over the blue-veined temples. (How could I help learning by heart such minute details when every one of them passed beneath my brush?) But what my brush could not possibly reproduce was her marvellous pair of eyes. They drove me entirely to despair. I really believe that even if I had been a true artist instead of a wretched dilettante, I should never have been able to conjure forth their secrets. Just when I was thinking I had fixed them, her eyes would flash, and my whole work was thrown away. At last I had to be content with a dreamy expression, which pleased me, at any rate, best. The inspecting family trio said that they had never seen such an expression on Bessy's face; nevertheless they acknowledged, with one voice, that it was a speaking likeness.

[Pg 20]

The head was now ready, the dress was to remain till to-morrow.

On that day there was a préférence party in town at the General's. Bessy's mother was an enthusiastic préférence player.... Consequently she was not at home. The aunt alone remained as the guardian of maidens, and she used generally to take a nap in the afternoon, or play patience. I[Pg 21] don't know who presided over Bessy's toilet on this occasion, perhaps nobody. That clean-cut, pale pink bodice on other days had given full scope to her charming figure; but on this particular day it was more insinuating than ever. It seemed to me as if the frill of English tulle had crept 

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