An indescribable flash of ironical amusement leaped across the painter’s face. “Popular!” “Yes.” “No, sir; plain people who love nature and the truth are not popular in these learned days. Why, were I to paint one of your Sussex landscapes with the dawn coming up over the downs a great gush of gold, not a soul would look at it; but if I took Lady Tomfool, draped her, shoved her in front of a bit of a Greek temple, made her strike some silly attitude, and called her Juno or Proserpine, or Alcestis returned from Hades, all the silly women would crowd round and gape at it, and declare that I had a most classic style.” Jeffray laughed, and lay back with a thoughtful light in his eyes, as he watched the cloud shadows playing over the sunny heights of Pevensel. Wilson was drumming on the window-sill with his fingers, and still holding the _Annual Register_ upon his knee. He was watching Richard with a grave and bent-browed tenderness, seeming to see in him the spirit of the coming age, when fine gentlemen would give up the carrying of muffs and the writing of odes in imitation of Horace. Men would wake again to the beauty that lived in the woods and upon the mountains. But for the present, Wilson had other duties to perform beside the praising of Jeffray’s poetry. He had been intrusted by Surgeon Stott with the responsibility of breaking the news of Miss Hardacre’s illness to his host. He had desired to put the lad in as good spirits as possible before flinging the unpleasant confession in his face. “There is no doubt, Richard,” he said, slowly, “that you have the true fire in you. Go on, sir, go on as you have begun, and let the big-bellied academicals snort and blow rhetoric through their noses. But the Muses must go flower-gathering for a moment; I have another matter on my mind this morning.” There was a forced and suspicious cheerfulness in Wilson’s voice that made Richard Jeffray turn his eyes to him from the slopes of Pevensel. The painter had something of the air of a nurse, who was about to administer physic to a child, pretending barefacedly the while that it was sweet and palatable as sugared milk. Wilson’s eyes were fixed on the _Annual Register_ in his hand; he was turning the leaves and glancing perfunctorily from page to page. “You are not the only sick person in the neighborhood, Richard,” he said, significantly; “they say that love is wondrous sympathetic, and that your Corydon can feel the toothache that is swelling in his Chloe’s cheek.” Jeffray stared at Wilson with vague surprise. “What do you mean, Dick?” he asked. “Mean, sir! Why, your betrothed, like the sweet lady that she is, has been keeping you company in the matter of boluses and bleedings, that is all.” “Jilian ill?” Wilson nodded and exercised his facial muscles in the production of a reassuring smile.