not particularly distressed herself. He sat down and work commenced as usual.

St. John was getting on more quickly than his teacher had imagined that he would. He was not likely to ever make an artist but still he progressed very fairly in amateur fashion. His eye unfortunately was not true; he could never see when a thing was out of drawing, but he was always ready to listen to advice, and correct his work under supervision. His greatest fault was a desire to get on too quickly; and Jill had to assert her authority on more than one occasion to restrain him, and keep his ambition in check.

One day, several weeks after the Bolton episode, he suggested that it was time he commenced painting; he was tired of black and white. He was then drawing from the bust of Clytie, and had only just begun working from the cast. Jill was not in a good temper that morning—things had not been prospering with her lately—and so St. John’s ill-timed suggestion met with scant consideration.

“You want to run before you can walk,” she returned with ill-humoured sarcasm. “Some people are like that. I knew of a girl once who was learning riding and insisted on cantering the second time she went out. The result was not altogether satisfactory; for it left her sitting in the middle of the road. Last week I yielded to your insane desire to attempt Clytie; the attempt is a failure; and so you want to begin painting.”

“Well,” he answered not exactly pleased by her manner of refusing his petition. “I certainly should like to vary the monotony. I don’t see why I shouldn’t paint one day a week and draw on the other.”

“That’s not my system,” replied Jill, and the curt finality of tone and manner irritated him exceedingly. He felt like saying ‘Damn your system,’ and only refrained by biting fiercely at his moustache, and jerking back his drawing-board with such vehemence that, coming into violent contact with the cast from which he had been working, and which stood on a box in the centre of the table, it upset the whole erection, and with a terrible crash Jill’s favourite model was shivered into fragments. Jill, herself, flew into such a rage as baffles description, and, alas to have to record it! springing forward boxed St. John’s ears. It was by no means a lady-like thing to do; but it seemed to occasion her some slight relief. She was positively quivering with passion, and stood glaring at the offender as though he had been guilty of a crime. St. John flushed crimson, and as if fearful of further assault dodged behind the model of the Venus de 

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