That was Mr. Ashton’s affair. He had tired of his processional march in the broiling sun by the time they had skirted Ardwick, and defiled into Chancery Lane. The two friends by his side, Mr. John McConnell and Mr. John Green (both cotton-spinners with whom he dealt), being of the same mind, they had fallen out of the line in Ancoat’s Lane, and turned down Canal Street to the house of the latter, to refresh themselves with something less dry than snuff or road-dust. Mr. Green was the uncle of Henry Liverseege, the artist, fragile of form and spiritual of face, but the latter was then only a genius in his nineteenth year—with fame and an early grave dimly foreshadowed. They found him on the doorstep, with his fussy and fidgety, though kind-hearted aunt, just back from Mr. Gore’s in Piccadilly, whence they had seen the show. The gentlemen’s requirement, a “draught of ale,” was soon supplied, accompanied by a spasmodic comment on the “grand display,” and the exhibition of a pair of the loyally inscribed fillets she had secured as the smallware-weavers passed. “By-the-bye, that was a wonderfully effective banner of yours, Mr. Ashton,” interposed the thin voice of Liverseege. “Who painted it?” “A young fellow in my employ, who occasionally designs for us,” answered Mr. Ashton, handing his snuff-box to the group in rotation—“quite a self-taught artist!” “Indeed! It was not much like an amateur’s brush. I should like to know him. You see I do something in that way myself.” The young painter, conscious of his own latent power, was sensitively alive to undeveloped art in another. “Would you? Just so! Then you shall. Come along, all of you, and finish the day with us. Mrs. Ashton will find us a dish of tea, and I am sure, Mrs. Green, she will be proud to see you also.” Turning to the gentlemen, who had by this time emptied their tallboy glasses, he added, “And I think I have a few bottles of rare old port waiting among the cobwebs for us to drink the King’s health.” It was a period of much pressing and many excuses, but the excitement of the day had so far destroyed ceremony that even Mrs. Green, who was somewhat punctilious, after a little nervous trepidation anent the fitness of her last new cap for company, consented, and accepted the arm Mr. Ashton gallantly offered to pilot her across the crowded street, along which the tail of the procession had only just trailed. Graciously, though with her natural stateliness, Mrs. Ashton received the new-comers; Mrs. Green, finding the company generally in morning visiting dress, was at ease about her cap; the tea was exhilarating; the viands toothsome; the wines excellent; there was one common topic for discussion; the ice of ceremony had thawed hours before; and genial Mr. Ashton, having locked the doors to prevent the escape of a guest before the supper he had bespoken was demolished, was thoroughly in his element.