When we reached the studio the servant said that Mr. Wilderspin was much indisposed that afternoon, and was also just getting ready to go to Paris, where he was to join Mr. Cyril in his studio; ’but perhaps he would see us,’—­an announcement that brought a severe look to my mother’s face, and another half-suppressed ‘Haw, haw!’ from Sleaford’s deep chest.

Mounting the broad old staircase, we found ourselves in the studio of the famous spiritualist-painter—­one of two studios; for Wilderspin had turned two rooms communicating with each other by folding-doors into a sort of double studio.  One of these rooms, which was of moderate size, fronted the north-east, the other faced the south-west.  There were (as I soon discovered) easels in both.  It was the smaller of these rooms into which we were now shown by the servant.  The walls were covered with sketches and drawings in various stages, and photographs of sculpture.

‘By Jove, that’s dooced like!’ said Sleaford, pointing to my mother’s portrait, which was standing on the floor, as though just returned from the frame-maker’s:  ’ask Cyril Aylwin if it ain’t when you see him.’

It was a truly magnificent painting, but more full of imagination than of actual portraiture.

One of the windows was open, and the noise of an anvil from a blacksmith’s shop in Maud Street came into the room.

‘Do you know,’ said my mother in an undertone, ’that this strange genius can only, when in London, work to the sound of a blacksmith’s anvil?  Nothing will induce him to paint a portrait out of his own studio; and I observed, when I was sitting to him here, that sometimes when the noise from the anvil ceased he laid down his brush and waited for the hideous din to be resumed.

Wilderspin now came through the folding-doors, and greeted us in his usual simple, courteous way.  But I saw that he was in trouble.  ’The portrait will look better yet,’ he said.  ’I always leave the final glazing till the picture is in the frame.’

After we had thoroughly examined the portrait, we turned to look at a large canvas upon an easel.  Wilderspin had evidently been working upon it very lately.

‘That’s “Ruth and Boaz,” don’t you know?’ said Sleaford.  ’Finest crop of barley I ever saw in my life, judgin’ from the size of the sheaves.  Barley paid better than wheat last year.  So the farmers all say.’

‘Don’t look at it,’ said Wilderspin.  ’I have been taking out part of Ruth, and was just beginning to repaint her from the shoulders upwards.  It will never be finished now,’ he continued with a sigh.

We asked him to allow us to see ‘Faith and Love.’

‘It is in the next room,’ said he, ’but the predella is here on the next easel.  I have removed it from underneath the picture to work upon.’

‘The head of Ruth has been taken out,’ said my mother, turning to me:  ’but isn’t it like an old master?  You ought to see the marvellous Pre-Raphaelite pictures at Mr. Graham’s and Mr. Leyland’s, Henry.’