“Mr. Woburn!” he exclaimed; then he stepped nearer and added in a low tone: “I was requested to tell you when you came that the members of the firm are waiting; will you step into the private office?” THE PORTRAIT It was at Mrs. Mellish’s, one Sunday afternoon last spring. We were talking over George Lillo’s portraits--a collection of them was being shown at Durand-Ruel’s--and a pretty woman had emphatically declared:-- “Nothing on earth would induce me to sit to him!” There was a chorus of interrogations. “Oh, because--he makes people look so horrid; the way one looks on board ship, or early in the morning, or when one’s hair is out of curl and one knows it. I’d so much rather be done by Mr. Cumberton!” Little Cumberton, the fashionable purveyor of rose-water pastels, stroked his moustache to hide a conscious smile. “Lillo is a genius--that we must all admit,” he said indulgently, as though condoning a friend’s weakness; “but he has an unfortunate temperament. He has been denied the gift--so precious to an artist--of perceiving the ideal. He sees only the defects of his sitters; one might almost fancy that he takes a morbid pleasure in exaggerating their weak points, in painting them on their worst days; but I honestly believe he can’t help himself. His peculiar limitations prevent his seeing anything but the most prosaic side of human nature-- “‘_A primrose by the river’s brim A yellow primrose is to him, And it is nothing more._’” Cumberton looked round to surprise an order in the eye of the lady whose sentiments he had so deftly interpreted, but poetry always made her uncomfortable, and her nomadic attention had strayed to other topics. His glance was tripped up by Mrs. Mellish.