sheet of flame, something that looked very like a Fiery Wig-perhaps a miniature Comet-it had unquestionably a tail was seen careering in the blaze, and seeming to "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm."

HAVE always been very fond of the society of portrait-painters. Whether it is that the pursuit of a beautiful and liberal art softens their natural qualities, or that, from the habit of conversing while engrossed with the pencil, they like best that touch-and-go talk which takes care of itself; or, more probably still, whether the freedom with which they are admitted behind the curtains of vanity and affection gives a certain freshness and truth to their views of things around them, - certain it is, that, in all countries, their rooms are the most agreeable of haunts, and they themselves the most enjoyable of cronies.

I had chanced, in Italy, to make the acquaintance of S- an English artist of considerable cleverness in his profession, but more remarkable for his frank goodbreeding and his abundant good-nature. Four years after, I had the pleasure of renewing my intercourse with him in London, where he was flourishing, quite up to his deserving, as a portrait-painter. His rooms were hard by one of the principal thoroughfares, and, from making an occasional visit, I grew to frequenting

them daily, often joining him at his early breakfast, and often taking him out with me to drive whenever we chanced to tire of our twilight stroll. While rambling in Hyde Park, one evening, I mentioned, for the twentieth time, a singularly ill-assorted couple I had once or twice met at his room, a woman of superb beauty, attended by a very inferior-looking and ill-dressed man. Shad, previously, with a smile at my speculations, dismissed the subject rather crisply; but, on this occasion, I went into some surmises as to the probable results of such "pairing and matching," and he either felt called upon to defend the lady, or made my misapprehension of her character an excuse for telling me what he knew about her. He began the story in the Park, and ended it over a bottle of wine in the Haymarket, of course, with many interruptions and digressions. Let me see if I can tie his broken threads together.

"That lady is Mrs. Fortescue Titton, and the gentleman you so much disparage is, if you please, the encumbrance to ten thousand a year, -the money as much at her service as the husband by whom she gets it. Whether he could have won her, had he been

'Bereft and gelded of his patrimony,'

I will not assert, especially to one who looks on them as 'Beauty and the Beast'; but that she loves him, or, at least, prefers to him no handsomer man, I may say I have been brought to believe, in the way of my profession."

"You have painted her, then ?" I asked rather eagerly,

thinking I might get a sketch of her face to take with

and for her,

me to another country. "No, but I have painted him, and it is not a case of Titania and Bottom, either. She is quite aware he is a monster; and wanted his picture for a reason you would never divine. But I must begin at the beginning.

66

After you left me in Italy, I was employed, by the Earl of to copy one or two of his favorite pictures in the Vatican, and that brought me rather well acquainted with his son. Lord George was a gay youth, and a very 'look-and-die' style of fellow; and, as much from admiration of his beauty as anything else, I asked him to sit to me, on our return to London. I painted him very fantastically in an Albanian cap and Oriental morning-gown and slippers, smoking a nargile; the room in which he sat, by the way, being a correct portrait of his own den, a perfect museum of costly luxury. It was a pretty gorgeous turnout, in the way of color, and was severely criticised, but still a good deal noticed, for I sent it to the exhibition.

"I was one day going into Somerset House, when Lord George hailed me, from his cab. He wished to suggest some alteration in his picture, or to tell me of some criticism upon it, I forget exactly what; but we went up together. Directly before the portrait, gazing at it with marked abstraction, stood a beautiful woman, quite alone; and, as she occupied the only point where the light was favorable, we waited a moment, till she should pass on, Lord George, of course, rather disposed to shrink from being recognized as the original. The

woman's interest in the picture seemed rather to increase, however; and, what with variations of the posture of her head, and pulling at her glove-fingers, and other female indications of restlessness and enthusiasm, I thought I was doing her no injustice by turning to my companion with a congratulatory smile.

"It seems a case, by Jove!' said Lord George, trying to look as if it were a matter of very simple occurrence; and she's as fine a creature as I've seen this season! Eh, old boy? We must run her down, and see where she burrows, — and there's nobody with her, by good luck!'

"A party entered just then, and passed between her and the picture. She looked annoyed, I thought, but started forward, and borrowed a catalogue of a little girl; and we could see that she turned to the last page, on which the portrait was numbered, with, of course, the name and address of the painter. She made a memorandum on one of her cards, and left the house. Lord George followed, and I, too, as far as the door, where I saw her get into a very stylishly appointed carriage and drive away, followed closely by the cab of my friend, whom I had declined to accompany.

"You wouldn't have given very heavy odds against his chance, would you?" said S- after a moment's pause.

,

"No, indeed!" I answered, quite sincerely.

"Well, I was at work the next morning, glazing a picture I had just finished, when the servant brought up the card of Mrs. Fortescue Titton. I chanced to be alone, so the lady was shown at once into my paint