"Oh, Adam! And why not? Because I'm, unluckily, married, am I to stop trying to improve myself, and not care to know what grand heights happier, unhampered women are scaling? And, Adam, only see, here's to be a paper read by a young lady only twenty-two, Mr. Malise says, and there couldn't be anything so very dreadful to hear in the little composition of an innocent young creature like that!" "'Subject, Celibacy, by Eliza Stella Greatheart, M.D.,'" read Ronayne. "Humph! charming young creature! Well, madam Lil, you'll have to imagine what the medical young lady will say on the state she's proved to such ripeness of years, for you're not likely to hear, and Mr. Malise has wasted his tickets. And as if you cared what anybody could say about single blessedness--a woman with an angel in the nursery crib, and a husband who breathes but to serve her! Go away this minute!" And I left monseigneur to his _moutons_, a little huffed, no doubt, at being interrupted in the fine middle of a working morning--always "The Growth of Language"; and you should see the pile of MSS. I used to copy for him, but lately it has taken so much time to sketch my baby! Every new attitude is prettier than the last, and every day adds a charm. You need not laugh; I never had a baby before. Just wait until you know for yourself! I've painted the darling twice, once for Ronayne's father, though a little against the grain, for the old gentleman thinks it dreadfully _infra dig._ that I, a lady born, and I most especially a lady wed, should ever have been publicly catalogued as an artist in exhibition lists and newspaper notices, and have sold the labor of my hands, eyes, and brain in the marketplace. What would happen if he caught sudden sight of a memento that always goes with me in one of my boxes--a little tin sign, my first one; and how proud I was of it! FRAULEIN LILIAN MACFARLANE. I don't like, for the family's sake, to imagine. When Ronayne gave him the picture on his birthday, our joint offering, my work set in the loveliest frame Ronayne could find, he couldn't help being pleased, and he couldn't help knowing it was baby's very self; but if the picture had been the work of a paid artist, I know he would have been wonderfully soothed. The picture was on exhibition for some days in the morning room, and being one day in the conservatory with Ronayne, I heard his father expatiating upon the striking likeness that had been happily caught, to a lady visitor. Presently I heard her read the signature, "Lil. De Vere, del., 1873." "Why, it is your daughter-in-law's work! How charming for a mother to be able to paint such an admirable portrait of her child. That must double the picture's value to you!" And the _beau pere_ hemmed and hawed, and made the general inarticulate noises of an Englishman embarrassed, or wishful to make an impressive speech, and finally got out: "Aw, yes, yes--of course! A nice and amateur talent has Mrs. De Vere."