"Captain Egerton is a brother of the brush, Mr. Winter," said Miss Vernon. "Indeed!" he replied, with a sharp keen glance, "what's your style, sir?" "Oh, I merely sketch; sometimes in water colours, but generally in chalks. Very rude attempts, I assure you." "It's a glorious gift, any portion of power to transfer living nature to dead canvass or paper. Miss Vernon tells me that she would give worlds to be a painter, and yet she will not even try to draw." "I _do_ try," she exclaimed, "I feel my eyesight failing fast in the effort; but you cannot force nature, and she did not intend me for a proficient in your noble art." "Pooh, pooh," cried Winter, "don't tell me that with your eye for the beautiful, for colors, for grace (look at the arrangement of those flowers, Captain Egerton), that you have no genius for painting; you have been shamefully neglected, and all your talents forced into another species of harmony, more fashionable but infinitely inferior." And he puffed, wiped his forehead, and swallowed his cup of tea at a gulp. "Mr. Winter, I will not allow you to misrepresent yourself," said Miss Vernon, "you love music in your very soul; do not pretend to think it inferior for the sake of argument!" "It _is_ inferior; painting appertains more to the intellect than music," rejoined Winter stoutly. "We know that angels sing in Heaven, but we never heard of their sketching," replied Miss Vernon. Mr. Winter, the Colonel, and I, laughed heartily at Miss Vernon's novel argument, and Winter, recovered from the momentary shock with a hasty "Pooh, pooh, Heaven indeed! Look at the lives of eminent painters, and then look at the lives of musicians." "I would rather not," said his antagonist. "Yes, it is strange," I observed, "but painters seem to be a less dissipated set of fellows than musicians; yet surely there is something of Heaven in music, and"-- "Captain Egerton," cried Miss Vernon, holding up a menacing finger, "are you taking that renegade's part?" "Far from it, Miss Vernon; no art can surpass music in my estimation; but as to the lives of its professors, there is, alas! no mistake." "I was a member of the Beefsteak Club in Dublin," said the Colonel; "we used to begin our evenings with the most divine duets and trios, glees and choruses, &c.; but towards the end, earth assumed the ascendant, and so great was its attraction, that by far the greater number of us were generally floored before the finale." "But," said Winter, with a slightly contemptuous look, "I do not speak of mere performers, I mean composers, creators, men of genius!" "_They_ surely were men of good report, at least," began Miss Vernon. "Miss Kate, if you please," said Nurse, looking in, "little Mr. Gilpin wants to spake to you." "Oh, show him in, Nurse; say Grandpapa particularly wishes to speak to him."