"Perhaps I can yet gratify him," said the painter. "I owe you a deep debt of gratitude--I have some skill in taking likenesses, and sometimes obtain them, even with but little aid of the sitter. The Captain has averred that you yourself bear an extraordinary resemblance to your brother----Perhaps, perhaps, Miss Loring, if you were to honour me so far--that is to say"---- "Ah!" cried Catherine, with sparkling eyes, "I see! Do you think it possible? I am indeed like my poor brother, if I can trust my own recollections. Do you think it practicable, from _my_ visage, to construct a likeness of my brother's? Then, indeed, I would sit to you, and gladly!" "With such a resemblance to begin upon," said Herman, greatly pleased with the satisfaction of the young lady, "and the help of your recollections and criticisms, I do not doubt of success; and then the pleasure of presenting such a portrait!"---- "Of _presenting_, Mr. Hunter!" cried Catherine; "we cannot permit you to think of that. We will not convert your gratitude for a slight hospitality into an excuse for taxing your professional exertions." "Professional, madam?" said the other, with some little petulance; "I hope you will not consider me a mercenary, hireling dauber?" "A dauber, we hope not,--mercenary, assuredly not;--and hireling is a word not to be applied to one who receives payment for any generous labour," said Catherine. "If you insist upon painting 'the grand picture' for nothing, Mr. Hunter, you will certainly escape from all trouble in relation to it. Not even my father would think a moment of imposing such an unrecompensed task upon you, or such dishonour upon himself." "You mortify me, Miss Loring," said Herman: "I can scarce call myself a painter by any thing more than inclination. If I have adopted the profession, it is not to make my bread by it; and indeed I can scarce say, I have adopted it at all.--That is," he added, in some confusion, for Catherine regarded him with a look of surprise--"In short, Miss Loring, it has been my good fortune to be put above the actual necessity of adopting this profession, or any other, for my support. I paint, because I love the art, and have nothing better to do; it suits my idle habits. I never have received a recompense for my labour, (you should have called it my amusement, for such it is,) and perhaps I never will;--not that I scorn recompense as being degrading, but because I need it not. The pleasure I feel in the labour is my reward; and I am doubly rewarded, when my poor sketches afford pleasure to those whose good opinion I covet. You have thrown me under obligation, Miss Loring; and I claim of your generosity, or if that word will not be permitted, of your justice, an opportunity to oblige in return."