And Ronayne, who knows very well that he's a capital figure, and whom I accuse of keeping the lowest button of his coat fastened in order to display his slender waist, gives an alarmed glance down at himself, and I see, to my great amusement, that no Bass is uncorked at luncheon, my lord consenting himself with a glass of sherry instead--a needless self-denial, I hasten to add, for he's really no more bulging than a greyhound! But he deserves the little scare for his attempt at rebellion. Fancy my husband having any will of his own about stopping in any attitude I choose him to take, and for as long as I choose! I knew such a queer artist in London, a rather coarse, wholly uneducated woman, but with a streak of real genius. She married the commonest, stupidest man, a pink-and-white young idiot of a tailor, grown now to be the "heavy father"--red, fat, lazy, letting his wife earn all the money. Somebody scolded about him to the poor, over-worked wife. "Yes, I know I have to keep the pot boiling," she answered, "but then Dave saves a model, he's the kindest father to the children, and he does all the sewing!" _He_ doesn't object to pose, not he! And how proud he is of his wife! I found him alone in her studio one day. I looked over some engravings after Titian while waiting, and the man said, "Them engravings o' Titian's, now, ma'am, they're out o' drawing! But here's a picture o' my wife's that's more the real thing," putting on the easel, with affectionate pride, a painting in which two or three of their children were grouped--a trashy, tawdry, grinning thing, and yet with unmistakable touches of power. And this is a tale my husband has reason to know by heart, I'm sure! Not pose! I wish he had Miss Hedges for a wife! Anything like that girl's utter devotion to her work I've never seen in a woman. Rain or shine, cold or heat, are all one to her; she never has spiritually gray days when the grasshopper's a burden, and Capua itself wouldn't have unnerved her arm and purpose. Work! work! And everything turned to account. Last summer when she was with us I fainted at some horrible tale or other. She came into the room where I lay stretched flat upon the floor, too miserable to speak, but conscious again. I must do her the justice to say she had heard there was no serious cause for my condition; but her first exclamation was,