Afterwards it did not seem so bad: he began to feel its picturesqueness, for he went there again, and let the girls sketch him. When Miss Swan asked him that night if he would let them he wished to refuse; but she seemed so modest about it, and made it such a great favour on his part, that he consented; she said she merely wished to make a little sketch in colour, and Miss Carver a little study of his head in black and white; and he imagined it a trifling affair that could be despatched in a single night. They decided to treat his head as a Young Roman head; and at the end of a long sitting, beguiled with talk and with thoughtful voluntaries from Berry on his banjo, he found that Miss Carver had rubbed her study nearly all out with a piece of bread, and Miss Swan said she should want to try a perfectly new sketch with the shoulders draped; the coat had confused her; she would not let any one see what she had done, though Berry tried to make her let him. Lemuel looked a little blank when she asked him for another sitting; but Berry said, “Oh, you'll have to come, Barker. Penalty of greatness, you know. Have you in Williams & Everett's window; notices in all the papers. 'The exquisite studies, by Miss Swan and Miss Carver, of the head of the gentlemanly and accommodating clerk of the St. Albans, as a Roman Youth.' Chromoed as a Christmas card by Prang, and photograph copies everywhere. You're all right, Barker.” One night Miss Swan said, in rapture with some momentary success, “Oh, I'm perfectly in love with this head!” Berry looked up from his banjo, which he ceased to strum. “Hello, hello, hel-_lo_!” Then the two broke into a laugh, in which Lemuel helplessly joined. “What--what is it?” asked Miss Carver, looking up absently from her work. “Nothing; just a little outburst of passion from our young friend here,” said Berry, nodding his head toward Miss Swan. “What does it mean, Mad?” asked Miss Carver in the same dreamy way, continuing her work. “Yes, Madeline,” said Berry, “explain yourself.” “Mr. Berry!” cried Miss Swan warningly. “That's me; Alonzo W., Jr. Go on!” “You forget yourself,” said the girl, with imperfect severity. “Well, you forgot me first,” said Berry, with affected injury. “Ain't it hard enough to sit here night after night, strumming on the old banjo, while another fellow is going down to posterity as a Roman Youth with a red shawl round his neck, without having to hear people say they're in love with that head of his?” Miss Carver now stopped her work, and looked from her friend, with her head bowed in laughter on the back of her hand, to that of Berry bent in burlesque reproach upon her, and then at Lemuel, who was trying to control himself. “But I can tell you what, Miss Swan; you spoke too late, as the man said when he swallowed the chicken in the fresh egg. Mr. Barker has a previous engagement. That so, Barker?”