He was a fantastic-looking old gentleman, dressed in a tightly-buttoned frock coat. A figure suggestive of Count d'Orsay gone to the dogs. Mildewed, washed, and mangled by Fate, and very much faded in the process. He said nothing for a moment, and then he said, after a long and critical survey of the little _genre_ picture on which our artist was engaged: "Your work improves, decidedly your work improves, Leavesley--improves, very much so, very much so, very much so." The artist said nothing, and the irresponsible critic, placing his hat on the floor and tightly clasping the umbrella he carried under his left arm, made a funnel of his hands and gazed through it at the picture. "Decidedly, decidedly; but might I make a suggestion?" "Yes, yes." "Well, now, frankly, the attitude of that man with the axe----" "Which man with the axe?" "He in the right-hand corner by the----" "That's not a man with an axe, that's a lady with a _fan_, you old owl." "Heavens!" cried Mr Verneede. "How could I have been so deceived, it was the light. Of course, of course, of course--a lady with a fan, it's quite obvious now. A lady with a fan--do you find these very small pictures pay, Leavesley?" "Yes--no--I don't know. Sit down, like a good fellow; that's right--look here." "I attend." "I'm expecting a young lady to call here to-day." "A young lady?" "Yes, and I wish you'd wait and see her." "I shall be charmed." "You will when you see her--but it's not that. See here, Verneede, I want to explain her to you." "I listen." "She's quite unlike any one else." "Ha!" "I mean in this way, she's so jolly and innocent and altogether good, that upon my word I wish she wasn't coming here alone." "You fear to trust yourself----" "Oh, rubbish! only, it doesn't seem the thing." "Decidedly not, decidedly not." "Oh, _rubbish_! she's as safe here as if she were with her grandfather--what I mean to say is this, she's so innocent of the world that she does things quite innocently that--that conventional people don't do, don't you know. She has no mother." "Poor young thing!" "And her father, who is one of the jolliest men in the world, lets her do anything she likes. I wish I had a female of some sort to receive her here, but I haven't," said Mr Leavesley, looking round the studio as if in search of the article in question. "I know of an eminently respectable female," said Mr Verneede meditatively, "who would fall in with your requirements; unfortunately, she is not available at a short notice; she lives in Hoxton, as a matter of fact." "That's no use, might as well live in the moon. No matter, _you'll_ do, an excellent substitute like What's-his-name's marmalade." "May I ask," said Mr Verneede, rather stiffly, as if slightly ruffled by this last remark, "is this young lady, from a worldly point of view, an _éligible partie_?"