One of these filled Kingcote with delight; he uttered an “Ah!” of pleasure. It was a little girl standing before a shop-window, and looking at an open illustrated paper which was exposed there. The subject was nothing, the pose and character of the child everything. Poor and ragged, she had lost for the moment sense of everything, but the rich and comfortable little maiden displayed in the coloured page; her look was envious, but had more of involuntary admiration. This too was a night-piece; the light came from the front of the shop, above the picture. “The face is exquisite!” Kingcote said; “you have made great strides this last halfyear.” The artist uttered a “h’m,” and no more. “So you got tired of your cottage,” he said, seating himself, and taking up his pencil again. “You know I was that, long since. But a different reason brought me back to London.” He explained his situation. “And what shall you do?” Gabriel asked, simply. “It is impossible to say. I must find work of some kind.” “Well, this is good news! At last you’ll do something.” “My dear fellow, it is the opposite of good news. I shall do something, no doubt; but it will be drudgery of some kind to earn a living. There is nothing more to come out of me than that.” “Humbug! You are not as old as I am.” “No, but old enough to have seen the end of my tether.” “Why don’t you go in for writing?” “Because I am unable to. I can enjoy other men’s work, but I can produce none of my own.” “Of course not, if you take it for granted. You could if you made up your mind to.” “Don’t forget that that making up of the mind is everything; it is the very ability which I lack. But literature is a vain thought. How is it for a moment to be imagined that I could earn a sufficient income by it? I have written verses at times; you don’t advise me to go into the market with those wares? Journalism I am utterly unfit for, as you must recognise. Equally unfit to write for magazines; I have neither knowledge nor versatility. There remains fiction, and for that I am vastly too subjective; I have no ‘shaping spirit of imagination’--at all events not of the commercially valuable kind. If I had lived in days when Undine and Sintram were the approved style, I should probably have been tempted to try my hand; but now----” “Because,” he continued, “you are blessed with genius and will, you think all men should, can do great things by dint of mere exertion. I shall _never_ do anything; do you understand? And why should I? There are other ways of enjoying life.” “What other ways?” Gabriel asked, strangely. “One can receive happiness, as well as be active in bestowing it.” “Whence is your happiness to come?”