* * * * * Clarian's Picture! What a gush of recollection the words evoke! I was in the heyday and blossom of my youth then, and now--well, 'tis some years since; yet how vividly I remember that pleasant noontide of a day of early summer, when, as a party of us students were lounging about the gates that opened from our shady campus upon the street, "Dennis" handed me a note from Clarian, in which my little friend announced that his picture was finished at last, and invited Mac and myself to call and see it "exhibited," at nine o'clock that very evening. We were talking about Clarian and his picture, at the time,--as, indeed, we had been doing for a month,--and when I mentioned the purport of the note, curiosity rose to the tiptoe of expectation, and numerous surmises were set afloat. I could have satisfied their queries as to the subject and character of the picture, for Mac and I had seen it only a few days before, but Clarian expected us to be secret about it; so I only listened and smiled, while the eager talk ran on, and a thousand conjectures were hazarded. "So the _magnum opus_ is finished at last," said Clayt Zoile, showing by his manner, as he joined us, that he at least had not received an invitation; "a precious specimen of Art it will prove, I doubt not, after all the outcry about it. '_Montes parturiunt_' etc." "You'll lose your wish this time, Clayt," drawled Mounchersey, carelessly; "Mr. Cosine told me yesterday that 'Boss' has called on Clarian about his cutting so many prayers and recites, and that, after seeing the unfinished picture, he gave the youngster _carte blanche_ as to time, till it is completed;--so it must be something worth looking at" "I guess Ned Blount's glad the picture is finished," said Tone Ninyan, turning to me,--"a'n't you, Ned?" I confessed I was not by any means sorry, for Clarian's sake. "No," laughed Zoile, "Ned isn't sorry,--be sure of that; for he wants his dear 'Whitewash' restored again to the bosom of society, lest the walls of his reputation should by chance suffer from fly-speck." These words created a laugh at my expense; for Clarian had shown himself, in his warm, generous way, such a zealous advocate of my immaculate perfection, that he was quite generally known by the _sobriquet_ of "Ned Blount's Whitewash." Just then Mac came along, on his way to the post-office, and I joined him, showing him Ciarian's note.