“Now, Bob,” she said, opening her portfolio, with all her youthful frankness and confidence, “you know well enough I am not one of those old masters of whom you used to talk so much, but your own pupil—­the work of your own hands; and if you find more faults than you have expected, you will have the goodness to remember that the master has deserted his peaceful pursuits to go a campaigning—­there—­that is a caricature of your own countenance, staring you in the face, as a preface!”

“This is like, I should think—­was it done from memory, dear Maud?”

“How else should it be done?  All our entreaties have never been able to persuade you to send us even a miniature.  You are wrong in this, Bob”—­ by no accident did Maud now ever call the major, Robert, though Beulah often did.  There was a desperate sort of familiarity in the Bob, that she could easily adopt; but the ‘Robert’ had a family sound that she disliked; and yet a more truly feminine creature than Maud Meredith did not exist—­“You are wrong, Bob; for mother actually pines to possess your picture, in some shape or other.  It was this wish that induced me to attempt these things.”

“And why has no one of them ever been finished?—­Here are six or eight beginnings, and all, more or less, like, I should think, and not one of them more than half done.  Why have I been treated so cavalierly, Miss Maud?”

The fair artist’s colour deepened a little; but her smile was quite as sweet as it was saucy, as she replied—­

“Girlish caprice, I suppose.  I like neither of them; and of that which a woman dislikes, she will have none.  To be candid, however, I hardly think there is one of them all that does you justice.”

“No?—­what fault have you to find with this?  This might be worked up to something very natural.”

“It would be a natural, then—­it wants expression, fearfully.”

“And this, which is still better.  That might be finished while I am here, and I will give you some sittings.”

“Even mother dislikes that—­there is too much of the Major of Foot in it.  Mr. Woods says it is a martial picture.”

“And ought not a soldier to look like a soldier?  To me, now, that seems a capital beginning.”

“It is not what mother, or Beulah—­or father—­or even any of us wants.  It is too full of Bunker’s Hill.  Your friends desire to see you as you appear to them; not as you appear to your enemies.”

“Upon my word, Maud, you have made great advances in the art!  This is a view of the Knoll, and the dam—­and here is another of the mill, and the water-fall—­all beautifully done, and in water-colours, too.  What is this?—­Have you been attempting a sketch of yourself!—­The glass must have been closely consulted, my fair coquette, to enable you to do this!”