About this time I received my first commission, through Mrs. Pender (afterwards Lady Pender), who asked my father if I could be induced to undertake a series of drawings for a friend of hers, Mrs. Butler Johnstone Munro. Of course, I jumped at the offer, and lost no time in making the acquaintance of my patroness, who was an eccentric old lady of eighty, and quite an original character. Her brother, Mr. Munro of Novar, had left her his collection of pictures of all schools, which she prized greatly, and she wished me to make a plan and series of drawings to scale, of the pictures in their frames exactly as they hung upon the walls of her house in Hamilton Place, that it might give her an idea how they should be placed in a mansion she was moving into. The work took me a little over three months to complete, and when it was done, I made sure of a handsome remuneration from Mrs. Butler Johnstone, who was very wealthy. Alas! the five-pound note which she paid me after my first day's work was all I ever got, for she died suddenly while I was taking a summer holiday, and I was "mug" enough not to send in a claim to her executors. Thus only the memory and satisfaction of having studied some of the finest pictures in this country was left me by way of compensation for my trouble. I often, however, look back in amusement at some of my experiences while I was working for this quaint old lady, who, I may mention, seemed to consider me at her beck and call, and used to telegraph for me to come and show her guests a portfolio containing an almost unique set of water-colour drawings by Turner. Colonel Butler Johnstone, M.P. (my patroness's husband) came into the room one day when I was starting upon my commission; _he_ evidently had no sympathy with art, for he said that he thought that I might be better occupied. It seemed to him, he said, rather ridiculous to undertake such tedious work, because when it was completed he couldn't see the object of it. This was a little disconcerting, but I was not discouraged.