Oswald went down to the office of the _Piccadilly_ afterwards, in great satisfaction with his work. Sometimes these productions brought him in a guinea or two, and then how pleased he was! more pleased than if he had inherited a fortune. He thought himself on the high road to fame and fortune when this happened, and was pleased to let his friends think that he made a good deal of money by his pen. Luckily for him, he did not need to put any dependence upon these dilettante earnings; but they sweetened life to him, if they did not put much money in his purse. And the idea of Cara gave him a soft pleasure. He, too, thought how it might be told hereafter that his first critic was a beautiful girl, and that it was her enthusiasm which stirred him on to the heights he afterwards attained. ‘And what became of the beautiful girl?’ he thought he could hear somebody ask in posterity. Yes, indeed! what became of her? Should she marry the poet, and be his muse and his critic combined, or should she be drifted away into some other career, and carry the memory of him with her to her last day, not quite breaking her heart, perhaps, or at least no more than could be mended? He smiled as he went along, with a little conscious warmth on his face, and wondered how this would be. But just then chance threw something else in his way. He met a procession of school girls--not a very wonderful thing--attended by one or two Sisters of one of the many modern Anglican sisterhoods, in poke bonnets and black veils, decorations which are often very effective when they surround a fair young countenance. Oswald had just caught sight of one which charmed him, and which was enclosed by a poke less rigid, and a veil less heavy than the others, which he concluded to mean novicehood, or even mere associateship. The owner of this soft serious face was too young to have made any permanent choice of so grave a kind, and was, indeed, only a governess to whom a modification of the conventual dress had been permitted as a privilege. Oswald crossed the road, and went along very demurely, though it was not his way, parallel with the procession, looking furtively, and, as he flattered himself, with purely artistic admiration, at the little shepherdess of the flock. ‘She is a Perugino,’ he said to himself, and already the ready verses began to flutter to his lips. He would write a poem about her; she was the most charming subject--a true Perugino, with just that warm glow of colour, not fair but mellow--those soft features, those modest eyes. He began on the spot:-- From old Pietro’s canvas freshly sprung, Fair face! that thus so sweetly can combine The maiden and the mother ever young--