“My brother will be certain to spare time for you,” Miss Reynolds assured Lady Bell, “he is like the rest of the geniuses, not above the flattery of such a visit. Bah! haven’t I known them all, Burke, Goldy, Dr. Johnson, who has wished my tea-pot might never run dry, and yet hurried off to help himself with his own spoon out of a Countess’s sugar-bason, and been put down—to put her down in turn in the presence of her grand company? Ah! well, I have never wished the great Doctor would stay by his own fire-side, though he has forced Joshua to rise and take his hat, if he would not sit on into the small hours, and have us all winking with sleep as the only hint to our visitor to be gone. I don’t know that we think ourselves so enviable. You’ll be sent for to the painting-room presently, Lady Bell—no, you need not look at my baby faces—child’s play to the doings of my brother,—the man in Cavendish Square can never come near them, though I should not say it. But first you must let me have a look at you, for even we poor artists hear of the belles of the season, with other public matters, in the conversation of sitters, and when we are bidden to look in at a conversazione, or a rout, now and then.” “Oh, pray, Miss Reynolds, don’t make me public property,” cried Lady Bell, in laughing objection. “If my brother seek to paint you, as he has painted so many of your sisterhood, you will become public property, whether you like it or no,” boasted the sister, “you cannot help it, madam, it is a tax you owe to the country, like the tax on powder or armorial bearings. But who is this gentleman? I did not catch his name. Oh! my brother has done many naval men, and for my part, I like his Lord Mount Edgcumbe and Commodore Keppel, as well as any face which he has put through his hands. My Lord Mount Edgcumbe is a Devonshire man, and for Commodore Keppel he gave Joshua his first lift, and we may well love a dog with the name of ‘Keppel,’ as Dr. Johnson could love a dog if it were called ‘Hervey.’” The garrulous inquisitive lady was interrupted by her little niece, as quiet as the aunt was a rattle, and as shy and attentive to the proprieties as Miss Reynolds was impetuous and eccentric. This young girl was Sir Joshua’s Offy Palmer, whom he was to immortalise, reading “Clarissa,” and who was to be Mrs. Gwatkin, while her sister was to be the heiress of the largest fortune acquired by the prosecution of art in this inartistic England, and to marry the Marquis of Thomond. She brought a message that her uncle was free from a sitter then, and for the next half hour, and that he was coming himself to take Lady Bell Trevor and Captain Fane to his painting-room, where he would shew them the pictures in his possession. CHAPTER XIV. SIR JOSHUA AT HOME.