of countenance after original on view every
night at the exhibition just closed St.
Stephens, or is it a mere Queen's counselship?

Here is our handkerchief, and our hand
upon our heart, and the "upon my word and
honour, gentlemen of the jury, I do believe
my unhappy client innocent,"  written in
every lineament of an expressive visage, so
that you can almost hear our broken tones.

If, however, as is but too probable, none
of these appointments should be conferred
upon me, photography is still to me its own
reward. There are but few professions which
combine, as this does, pleasure and profit,
enjoyment and a stroke of business. While
I wander amongst the fairest scenes of
nature, and, transfer them without robbery to
my cabinet, by aid of her clever little hand-
maid, Art, making for me a sort of illustrated
autobiography which re-animates, whenever I
set eyes upon any leaf of it, some by-gone
scene with its associations, I do not feel
much less joyous, because I am, at the same
time, earning my bread. When I mirrored,
indestructibly, that nook's green coolness
by the river's side, or arrested in its decay,
for years and years, yon blood-red ruin
crumbling away in the deep stillness of its
woods, my admiration, though perhaps weakened,
was not annihilated by the reflection
that trees were in demand and abbeys rising
in the photographic market. I am, by
nature, I believe, a man of sentiment, and
though my past life has been of a sort to give
the main chance a too prominent position,
my present certainly tends to mitigate that
experience. I have room, I hope, for tenderness
and disinterested pity, yet. I felt for
that kind lady and her family, yonder, in
deepest mourning, whom I took but a month
ago.

"I must have two pictures of each of
these," she said, pointing to her children, "all
that are left to me, so that in case of—"

She saw the poor, wandering artist had a
heart, I think, for she made no effort to
restrain her tears, and presently told him
her sad story. Her son had lately fallen—
been butchered—at an Indian station—, and all
she had of him now was a small portrait—
lifelike, real, of a soldierly, fine lad, whom any
mother well might have been proud of; and
this she must needs part with to his widowed
bride, left more forlorn even that she herself.
When I assured her that I could give her a
copy of this in a few moments, and presently
succeeded in producing a most accurate one,
I learnt, for the first time, how great a
benefactress is this simple art of mine,
and how gracious a giver, indeed, is the glorious
sun.

Once, when I had been engaged one morning
at a country house, taking likenesses of all
its in-dwellers, I was ridden after, upon my
road home, by one of the young gentlemen,
who asked me if I would be so kind as
to take him once again; when I said
''Yes, certainly"—since I travel in a shut-up
fly with yellow blinds (smelling, by-the-bye,
very horribly of collodion), and so am always
ready for a subject. He produced, from
round the corner of the road, his pretty
cousin Caroline, and, getting off their horses,
they were there and then grouped together
very prettily, with his arm turned round her
"dainty dainty waist," and his eyes looking
at her with an expression with a good deal
more of "kind" than "kin" in it. Poor young
fellow! He little knows that I have an
excellent copy of this which has been much
admired, and a very singular contrast it presents
to that which I took of him at his uncle's
house a few hours before, where he has a
manuscript sermon (roll of music) in that
left hand instead of Carry's fingers,
and is supposed to be preaching his first discourse
to his first congregation.

Again, shall I ever forget the young lady
of thirty-five or so, who wished to know
whether I would mind taking her by moonshine
instead of vulgar daylight! Or that
whole family of females who, being informed
by their little nephew who had pressed under
my black curtain, that they appeared upside
down, refused to be taken at all! Another
feminine circle once jumped up from their
chairs and insisted upon seeing how they
grouped in the camera before they were
printed off, and very much surprised they
were to find that when they were in my place
there was no group to look at.

Gentlemen, I must confess however, have
given me quite as much trouble as ladies;
their portraits are quite as often
pronounced by them to be "unnatural, inexpressive,
unlike," as those of the other sex are
held to have given them "too old an expression,"
or to have "very much exaggerated
the feet." One Paterfamilias who won't be
taken with a lot of babies, "to look like a
scene in a pantomime," and the Paterfamilias
who will, are both inexorable sitters,
and very hard to please. "Why, you have actually
made my hair grey!" cried one indignant
parent of five-and-fifty; and "You have
positively given dearest Edward John no nose at
all!" complained another, as querulous about
his little two-year-old as any grandmother.

Handsome old gentlemen, with one
expression, are my best photographees; then,
young men; then, old ladies; and worst of
all, I am obliged to say (save babies) are
young ladies. Their features are generally
too rounded, and they have rarely any
medium between trying to look intellectual
and giggling. This is my usual monologue
with the majority of them: "Not so much
up at the sky, Miss Smith; look at me, if you
please, and be so good as to part your lips;
don't frown; your ankle is too exposed, it
will be of a frightful size; thank you: don't
purse your mouth up as though you were
going to whistle, and oblige me likewise by
not laughing, or you'll have such a mouth;