On knocking at the door, it was opened for me by an extremely good-looking neatly dressed matron, who conducted me into a room which I could scarcely believe was the original old parlor. The homely antique furniture had disappeared, and was replaced by some very neat and convenient articles of modern form. The floor was nicely carpeted; there were new chairs and a new table,—a bed with white curtains and counterpane, and window-curtains to match.—Nothing looked familiar but the antique crown chair and the pictures. I found Miss Catharine Byles seated in a rocking chair with a pillow at her back.—She looked paler, thinner, sharper, and much older than when I last saw her. She was no longer in a white short gown but wore a whole gown of black merino, with a nice white muslin collar and a regular day-cap trimmed with black ribbon. Though glad to find her so much improved as to comfort, I take shame to myself when I confess that I felt something not unlike disappointment, at seeing such a change in the ancient lady and her attributes. The quaintness, and I may say the picturesqueness of the old mansion, and its accessories, and also that of its octogenarian mistress, seemed gone for ever. I am sorry to acknowledge that at the moment I thought of the French artist Lebrun, who meeting in the street an old tattered beggar-man with long gray locks and a venerable silver beard, was struck with the idea of his being a capital subject for the pencil, and engaged him to come to him next day and have his likeness transferred to canvass. The beggar came; but thinking that all people who sit for their pictures should look spruce, he had bedizened himself in a very genteel suit of Sunday clothes, with kneebuckles and silk stockings; his face and hands nicely washed; his chin shaved clean; and his hair dressed and powdered; the whole man looking altogether as unpaintable as possible.—All artists will sympathize with the disappointed Lebrun, as he contemplated his beggar with dismay, and exclaimed “—oh! you are spoiled!—you are spoiled!” I suppose it is because I am a painter’s sister, that I caught myself nearly on the point of making a similar ejaculation on seeing the new-modelling of Miss Catharine Byles, and her domicile.