The painter looked a mere boy, although he was full twenty years of age. His complexion was florid, his eyes hazel in hue, and he wore his brown hair long, artist fashion, and tossed back from his high white forehead. He was handsome, with an honest look in his eyes, and a pleasant mouth, but his chin was short, and weak in its expression, and his countenance betrayed a character full of good and noble impulses, yet with a weakness, indecision, and irresolution that might yet prove fatal to him. He was dressed in a shabby velveteen jacket, daubed with paints and out at the elbows. His garments, like his lodging, betrayed poverty of the most unmitigated description. This young man was Rufus Black, the only son of Craven Black who was Lady Wynde’s lover. And it was Rufus Black whom his father and Lady Wynde had planned should marry Neva Wynde, and thus play into their hands, enabling them to possess themselves of a portion of Neva’s noble fortune. As Mr. Black had said, he had quarrelled with his son some weeks before, and cast him off, penniless and destitute of friends, to shift for himself. He had drifted to his present lodgings, and was trying to keep soul and body together by painting wretched pictures, which he sold to a general dealer for wretched pay. “The picture don’t suit me,” he said, pushing back his chair, that he might get a better view of the painting. “It’s only a daub, but it’s as good as the pay. I’ve been three days at it, and it won’t bring me in even the fifteen shillings I got for the last. It will do to stop up a chimney-place, I suppose--and I had such grand ideas of my art, and of my talents! I meant to achieve fame and fortune, and here I am without food or fuel, with the rent due, and with my soul so fettered by these cares, so borne down by despair and remorse, that I am incapable of work. I am gone to the dogs, as my father told me to go--but, oh, why did I not travel the downward road alone? Why must I drag _her_ down with me?” A despairing look gathered on his face; the tears filled his eyes; a sob escaped him. He looked haggard, worn and despairing. He was in no condition for work, yet he resumed his task with blinded eyes, and painted on at random with feverish haste. He had grown somewhat calmer, with the calmness of an utter despair, when the door opened, and a girl came in bearing a large basket heavily loaded. She was a slender young creature, not more than seventeen years old, and her pale face and narrow chest betrayed a tendency to consumption. Her complexion was of a clear olive tint; her hair was of a blue-black color, and was worn in braids; her eyes were dark and loving, with an appealing expression in them; and, despite the circumstances of her lot, she maintained a hopeful, sunshiny spirit and a sunshiny countenance.