go hang herself, as the bard observes. Good gracious me!" cried the romancer, suddenly bursting into song: "'Should I, wasting in despai-air, Die-ie becau-ause a woman's fai-air?' By which, of course, I mean shall _you_," he added, in explanation. "Besides, haven't you your art to fall back upon? If life goes wrong with you, can't you take it out in violent reds and yellows, as I take it out in murder and villany? When the critics fall foul of me, I buy an extra ream of paper and a gallon of ink, and go at my work with a will. All the world lies before you, dear old Phil; and the day may come when Mrs. Lobyer will be obliged to expend her shilling for a peep at your great picture reigning in solitary glory in some West-end gallery; which isn't by any means a new dodge by-the-bye, for didn't the Athenians pay an entrance-fee for seeing the 'Helen' which Zeuxis painted for their city?" Thus consoled by the voice of friendship, Mr. Foley only grew more bitter. But he took his friend's advice nevertheless. Expended his last ten-pound note in the purchase of a new easel, and set up a monster canvas. He was almost like poor Haydon, who, in the piteous record of his wasted life, declares that without "a new large picture to lean upon," he felt "as if deserted by the world." In all the course of his acquaintance with William Crawford's fascinating daughter, the young painter had made no direct avowal of his passion. He loved her--he had told her so, indirectly, a thousand times--and he knew that she was conscious of his devotion. For some time after hearing Florence Crawford's engagement discussed as an established fact, Mr. Foley kept aloof from the Sunday-evening gatherings at the Fountains. Ah, how he hated the dreary Sabbath twilights after he had forsworn the delight of Flo's society; the wind and dust upon the Islington highways; the smartly-dressed church-goers decorously moving homewards; the smarter servant-maids hurrying away from hot little chapels, where they had been enduring semi-suffocation in the glare of the gas! Those bright, windy, spring evenings were terrible to the struggling painter. The decorous Islingtonians stared at him wonderingly as he passed them by, with his haggard face and streaming hair, his meerschaum-pipe and paint-stained coat. He lit his pipe when he was clear of the crowd, and with that faithful companion walked the suburban highways till midnight. On such evenings the atmosphere of his painting-room stifled him; the prim little sitting-room, in which his landlord's family kept their Sabbath state, was odious to him.