I first saw her in one of the narrow streets leading from Leicester Square to the Strand.  There was something in her face (dimly visible behind a thick veil) that instantly stopped me as I passed her.  I looked back and hesitated.  Her figure was the perfection of modest grace.  I yielded to the impulse of the moment.  In plain words, I did what you would have done, in my place—­I followed her.

She looked round—­discovered me—­and instantly quickened her pace.  Reaching the westward end of the Strand, she crossed the street and suddenly entered a shop.

I looked through the window, and saw her speak to a respectable elderly person behind the counter, who darted an indignant look at me, and at once led my charming stranger into a back office.  For the moment, I was fool enough to feel puzzled; it was out of my character you will say—­but remember, all men are fools when they first fall in love.  After a little while I recovered the use of my senses.  The shop was at the corner of a side street, leading to the market, since removed to make room for the railway.  “There’s a back entrance to the house!” I thought to myself—­and ran down the side street.  Too late! the lovely fugitive had escaped me.  Had I lost her forever in the great world of London?  I thought so at the time.  Events will show that I never was more mistaken in my life.

I was in no humor to call on my friend.  It was not until another day had passed that I sufficiently recovered my composure to see poverty staring me in the face, and to understand that I had really no alternative but to ask the good-natured artist to lend me a helping hand.

I had heard it darkly whispered that he was something of a vagabond.  But the term is so loosely applied, and it seems so difficult, after all, to define what a vagabond is, or to strike the right moral balance between the vagabond work which is boldly published, and the vagabond work which is reserved for private circulation only, that I did not feel justified in holding aloof from my former friend.  Accordingly, I renewed our acquaintance, and told him my present difficulty.  He was a sharp man, and he showed me a way out of it directly.

“You have a good eye for a likeness,” he said; “and you have made it keep you hitherto.  Very well.  Make it keep you still.  You can’t profitably caricature people’s faces any longer—­never mind! go to the other extreme, and flatter them now.  Turn portrait-painter.  You shall have the use of this study three days in the week, for ten shillings a week—­sleeping on the hearth-rug included, if you like.  Get your paints, rouse up your friends, set to work at once.  Drawing is of no consequence; painting is of no consequence; perspective is of no consequence; ideas are of no consequence.  Everything is of no consequence, except catching a likeness and flattering your sitter—­and that you know you can do.”

I felt that I could; and left him for the nearest colorman’s.