"Kind of business, but reasonable good wishes which had some chance of being fulfilled. The first firm kept them for months, and could not be induced to return them until I had written four times, and the second said that it was too late in the season to consider new designs. I have sent headings and initial letters to magazines, and have had heaps of compliments, but nothing more substantial. I have likewise had heaps of snubs at the Slade, but I bob up again like a cork after each fresh dousing, and am more determined than ever to get on and make a name. The mistake we have made is in being too proud to begin at the beginning. Hope is the most humble-minded of the family; but she expected to become well-known in one season, and to sell her song by the hundreds. Theo wanted to write for the _Casket_, and I hoped to be exhibiting before now. We must crawl down, and be content to drudge before we soar. My serious studies leave much to be desired, but I can caricature with the best. The other day I amused myself in the lunch hour by drawing the pupils in the life, and one of the girls' carried off the sketch and stuck it on her easel. Just then in came Pepper, as we call him--he is so horribly stinging and bitter in his criticisms-- and walked straight up to look at it. Oh, my heart! He was quite silent, but I saw his shoulders shaking, and when he turned round his face was red. `Whose work is this?' he asked; and I suppose guilt was written large on my expressive features, for he came up to me and said, `I shall have to inflict a punishment for this, Miss Charrington. I cannot have my pupils ridiculed and their work interrupted in this manner. The punishment is--that you draw a caricature of me on the other side of the sheet!' "He put the paper on my easel, and all the girls giggled and peered round to witness my collapse. But I wasn't going to be floored by a little thing like that. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stood opposite me, and I set to work to draw him then and there. He was easy to caricature, for he has a curious, sheep-dog kind of face, with two deep lines running down from the nose, humped-up shoulders, and a mop of hair. It really was like him, and what I call a _polite_ caricature, so that his feelings shouldn't be hurt. He tried to look solemn when I gave it to him, but his lips twitched, and he walked straight out of the room and took it with him. Next day, when he was abusing my drawing as usual, he said, `You had better caricature your subjects at once. You will make far more out of them in that way than in any other.' That was quite a compliment coming from Pepper, and I've taken it to heart. After much cogitation I have evolved an idea which, with Theo's co-operation, I am going to put into action forthwith. I sha'n't tell you what it is until I see how I succeed, but I don't mind confessing that it is hardly high-class. We might call it the lowest rung of the ladder."