patient, and hopeful—nay, confident of
ultimate success, though it might be preceded
by many a struggle, many a disappointment
and anxiety. Perhaps it was the consciousness
of the growing and ripening power
within him that kept him cheerful and happy.
Mary thought so.

While the chill March east-wind was
sweeping the London streetswhile
snowdrops and timid violets were opening in the
grass under sunny country hedgerows,
Valentine was cooped up in his painting-room
working with honest fervour at a picture
which he hoped to see on the walls of the
Academy. Mary watched his conception grow
out upon the canvas, day by day until she
discerned in the sweet face an idealised
reminiscence of Rosamund Wilton—poor Val's
first love. He had had no other love since
then to efface the vivid beauty of that dream,
and her face and form were still his perfect
incarnation of womanly loveliness. His picture
was a Sybil, a glorious inspired countenance,
lofty and pure in expression, as if her soul
were communing with gods. It was a finer
picture than Valentine knew; the hand now
was beginning to obey the heart; the pencil
to work out faithfully, what the spirit
conceived. Mary looked forward eagerly to the
coming day when his genius should be
acknowledged, and they should be no longer
poor—when they should no more need to
economise every penny, to live sparely and
dress meanly. But I will not expose poor
Mary's thrift in her early toilsome days, she
never exposed it, and why should her
biographer do it for her?

Valentine was no longer the plain-looking
individual he had been once; but as little
could he lay claim to that, to me, objectionable
praise of being "a handsome man." He
had an olive face, thin and clear in feature,
dark grey deep-set eyes, and black hair,
rather long and waved. A small moustache
shaded his mouth, and a peaked beard
ornamented his chin: as it had never known the
razor, it was fine and glossy, and consequently
an object of vain emulation amongst his
fellow artists. Mary used to tease him
sometimes, and tell him that he had a personal
vanity in his hirsute glories, but she did not
believe what she said. There never was a
man of simpler and more guileless temper
than he was; a child could have taken him
in—yes, and often did, by a pitiful tale of
fever or father's leg, beguiling pence from his
unsuspicious pocket. He looked older than
his years, from his grave, absorbed air; but
under all his gravity there was a vein of
humour, true and genial. If Fate meant to
have many more campaigns with him before
letting him pass through the gates of worldly
success, she could scarcely have met with
any man who would bear her assaults with
better temper, or repulse them with higher
mettle. He was made of that finely wrought
stuff which will bend and rebound, but never
break; of that strong fibre which pressure
stretches, but cannot rend. Amongst a
thousand it would be hard to find ten men with
greater elements of success in them, than lay
hid under the quiet exterior of Valentine
Unwin. Mary knew and felt this; and,
under the burden which rested mainly on
her patient shoulders, it upheld her mightily.

It was pleasantly curious to see the pair
at work in their mutual studio; Mary,
spectacled and stern, bending over her stone,
with fine elaborate touch, stroke by stroke
shading up a cloud to the required blackness,
or sometimes sketching a vignette for a song,
a rather favourite task of hers, because it
called out what little invention she possessed.
A poetical interpretation had been put, now
and then, on Mary's music vignettes, for
which the publishers would sometimes give
her a couple of guineas; but her most
constant work was laying those broad flat tints
on which we first saw her toiling at at the
Burnham School of Design. Valentine stood
at his easel, idle sometimes, but not often.
When he was in a slow humour, his great
work, the Sybil, reposed, and he sketched
children's heads from the family of the
woman who lived in the basement and looked
after the lodgers. People are attracted by a
pretty drawing of a child, who could not
appreciate high art, and Valentine had sold
several groups of Gipsy Girls, Peasant Boys,
and Angels, all renderings of the Bilton
family, who happened, fortunately, to be very
good-looking. Once he took Mary as a
fortune-teller; the likeness was inimitable, but
nobody had a fancy to her, and she still
remained in her pictorial cloak and hood,
leaned up against the study wall, with her face
towards it, unsold, and unlikely to be sold,
unless a windfall of good fortune happened
to that young enthusiast, who said she had
handsome eyes. But when he was in his best
moods, then he laboured on his Sybil, and so
it came to pass that, out of his patience she
grew slowly into perfection; every touch
was a touch of love, for Valentine was a
true artist, and gave his whole energy of soul
and spirit to the accomplishment of his
work! There was not a careless stroke, not
an unmeaning stroke in the whole; he might
hereafter paint with greater fluency, but
never with more fervour, never with more
faithfulness.

           CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

"DINNER is ready, Val!" Val paid no heed
to the thrice-repeated announcement: he
was regarding his picture with that pleasant
enthusiasm which comes over the true artist
when he forgets himself in his art, and feels
that he has done a piece of true and honest
work. Mary came behind him, and admired
over his shoulder. The great picture was
finished, and it was beautiful indeed—beautiful
enough to satisfy even her who would not
have him ever fall short of the best; her