Hide and Seek

e, but a brisk frosty morning in January. The country view visible from the back windows of Mr. Blyth's house, which stood on the e

up brightly and willingly without coaxing; and the robin-redbreasts hopped about expectantly on balconies and windowsills, as if th

icture of considerable size, covered over for the present with a pair of sheets which looked woefully in want of washing. There was a painting-stand with quantities of shallow little drawers, some too full to open, others, again, too full to shut; there was a movable platform to put sitters on, covered with red cloth much disguised in dust; t

inst a dining-room chair, with a horse-hair cushion. Before the largest of the two pictures, and hard by a portable flight of steps, stood a rickety office-stool. On the platform for sitters a modern easy chair, with the cover in tatters, invited all models to picturesque repose. Cl

ated black-beetle trap turned bottom upwards, assisted in forming part of the heterogeneous collection of rubbish strewed about the studio floor. And worse than all-as tending to show that the painter absolutely enjoyed his own disorderly habits-Mr. Blyth had jocosely desecrated his art, by making it imitate litter where, in all conscience, there was real litter enough already. Just in the way of anybody entering the room, he had painted, on the bare

ting-room, after the owner had inhabited it

ters-trips gaily over the imitative pen and brush-and, walking up to the fire, begins to warm his back at it, lookin

rs to walk principally on his toes, and seems always on the point of beginning to dance, or jump, or run whenever he moves about, either in or out of doors. When he speaks he has an odd habit of ducking his head suddenly, and looking at the person whom he addresses over his shoulder. These, and other little personal peculiarities of the same undignified nature, all contribute to make him exactly that sort of person whom everybody shakes hands with, and nobody bows to, on a first introduction. Men instinctively choose him to be the recipient of a joke, girls to be the male confidant of all

ected to clean since he last used it. Looking round the room for some waste paper, on which he can deposit the half-dried old paint that has been

ing habit, which men of his absent disposition are always too ready to contract. Three of these letters happen to be in the same scrambling, blotted handwriting. They are none of them very long, and are the product

not have done just the same anywhere else; unless laughing over a good play is one of the national sins he's always talking about. I can't stand it much longer, ev

ops a perfect puddle of dirty paint and turpentine in the middle, over the words

forgot to air at the fire the night before; and he found it out, and said he wouldn't have me smoke, because it led to dissipation-but I told him (which is true) that lots of parsons smoked. I

r gravely on this occasion; rapidly plastering his last morsels of waste paint upon the paper as he

y promised serious domestic tribulation f

on't want to be respectable, and I hate commercial pursuits. What is the good of forcing me into a merchant's office, when I can't say my Multiplication table? Ask my mother about that: she'll tell you! Only fancy me going round tea warehouses in filthy Jewish places like St. Mary-Axe, to take samples, with a blue bag to carry them about in; and a dirty junior clerk, who cleans his pen in his hair, to teach me how to fold up parcels! Isn't it enough to make my blood boil to think of it? I can'

way, with his obstinate severity, to drive Zack to something desperate. Coming here to-morrow, he says?" continues Mr. Blyth, approaching the smallest of the two pictur

, Valentine withdraws the sheet stretched over the canvas,

familiar, from our youth upwards, in "classical compositions." Down the middle of the scene ran that wonderful river, which is always rippling with the same regular waves; and always bearing onward the same capsizable galleys, with the same vermilion and blue revelers striking lyres on the deck. On the bank where there was most room for it, appeared our old, old friend, the architectural City, which nobody could possibly live in; and which

ntemplation of its beauties for a minute or so, Vale

er, run, and blunder in a mighty hurry about his studio, in search of missing colors which ought to be in his painting-box, but which are not to be found there. While he is still hunting through the room, his legs come into collision with a large drawing-board on which there is a blank sheet of paper stretched. This board seems to remind Mr. Blyth of some duty connected with it. He places it against two chairs, in a good light; then approaching a

ent under Mr. Blyth's

oft, bright, fresh, pure, and delicate, this young lady is, merely as an object to look at, contrasted with the dingy disorder of the studio-sphere through which she now moves. The keenest observers, beholding her as she at present appears, would detect nothing in her face or figure, her manner or her costume, in the slightest degree suggestive of impenetrable mystery, or incurable misfortune. And yet, she happens to b

If we are not the people whom others talk about, then we are sure to be the people who talk about others.

lentine's friends, who all knew her well, and loved her dearly. It was the oddest thing in the world, but no one of them could ever agree with another (except on a certain point, to be prese

th's studio, after having once given him an order to paint her rare China tea-service, and her favorite muff, in one group; and who differed entirely from the little picture-dealer. "Fiddle-de-dee!" cried her ladyship, scornfully, on hearing Mr. Gimble's opinion quoted one day. "The man may know something about pictures, but he is an idiot about women. Her complexions indeed! I could make as good a complexion for myself (we old women are painters too, in our way, Blyth). Don't tell me about her complexion-it's

poetry, and showed, by various sonnets, that he again differed completely about the young lady from the Dowager Countess of Brambl

of rapture and t

patia

s smiling at h

kisses gods mi

as all for the lower part of the young lady's face, and actually worried her, an

ing engraver, who, on being asked to mention what he most admired in her, answered that he thought it was her hair, "which was of such a nice light brown color; or, perhaps, it might be the pleasant way in which she carried her head, or, perhaps, her shoulders-or, perhaps, her head and shoulders, both together. Not that his opinion was go

edown, Mr. Bullivant, Mrs. Blyth's father, and hosts of frien

but slightly conversant with pictures, the moment they saw her. Taken in detail, her features might be easily found fault with. Her eyes might be pronounced too large, her mouth too small, her nose not Grecian enough for some people's tastes. But the general effect of the

riends, into "Madonna." One or two extremely strict and extremely foolish people objected to any such familiar application of this name, as being open, in certain directions, to an impu

guage, signifying simply and literally, "My lady." And, in conclusion, he proved historically, that "Madonna" had been used in the old times as a prefix to the names of Italian women; quoting, for example, "Madonna Pia," whom he happened to remember

some colors were still missing from it, began to search for them directly in the painting-box. She found them in a moment, and appealed to Mr. Blyth with an arch look of inquiry and triumph. He nodded, smiled

ttle mock curtsey, pouting her lip slightly, as if drawing the Venus was work not much to her taste-smiled when she saw Valentine shaking his head, and frowning comically at her-then went away at once to the drawing-b

stood sadly in need of a little brightening up. While the painter and the young lady are thus industriously occupied with the business of the studio, th

," when he kissed her-or, "Thank you for finding my lost colors,"-or, "I have set the Venus, my dear, for your drawing lesson to-day." And she, woman as she is, has actually not asked him a single

Mysteries of the

s Mad

real name

Mary

Equestrian Company. In that adventure, and in the strange results attending it, the clue lies h