"Babs takes after her great-grandmother," observed Amias cheerfully from the background; "it is the law of heredity, you see. Her name was also Barbara--Barbara Allen, and she was remarkable for her brown skin, her gipsy beauty, and her incorrigible self-will. She had lovers by the score, and flouted them all except my great-grandfather, whom I have reason to believe wished himself dead before he had been married a week. She was the mother of fifteen, and lived to a good old age, and was a pride and terror to the neighbourhood, and the mantle of her self-will has fallen upon Barbara Maud Keston. Yea-Verily, my child, the oracle has spoken," and Amias went on with his work, while Babs gurgled at him in delighted appreciation of these paternal sentiments. "Would Miss Sheldon care to see my picture, Malcolm?" he asked the next minute in his usual voice; "it is nearly finished, and I shall be glad of an opinion;" and then he drew back from the canvas, and Malcolm and Anna took his place. It was one of those little studies from life that appeal so strongly to the popular taste, and in spite of its simplicity and absence of breadth, it was exquisitely painted. It was only a couple of organ-grinders resting during the noontide heat. The man was sitting on the curb with a short pipe in his mouth--a handsome rascal of a fellow, evidently an Italian, with gold rings in his ears. The woman, in peasant costume, looked heated and weary, and had a baby in her arms. Both mother and child were painted from life. "How beautiful!" whispered Anna, looking reverently at the giant beside her. "It is one of your best pictures, Goliath," observed Malcolm, "but I suppose you do not intend to exhibit it next year?" "Oh no," he returned, "it is already bespoken by a rich Australian. Rainsford brought him here to see if he would give me an order, and he fell in love with my organ-grinders at once. I had a sort of idea that I would keep it myself, for the sake of Verity and the kid; but with a family"--here Amias smoothed his yellow moustache proudly--"one is bound to keep the pot boiling."