Pointedly ignoring Gertrude, she shook hands with the other girls; angry as she was, their shabby clothes and shabby furniture smote her for the moment with compassion. Poverty seemed to her the greatest of human calamities; she pitied even more than she despised it. To Lucy, indeed, who escorted her downstairs, she assumed quite a gay and benevolent manner; only pausing to ask on the threshold, with a good deal of fine, healthy curiosity underlying the elaborate archness of her tones: "Now, how much money have you naughty girls been making lately?" Lucy stoutly and laughingly evaded the question, and Aunt Caroline drove off smiling, refusing, like the stalwart warrior that she was, to acknowledge herself defeated. But it was many a long day before she attempted again to interfere in the affairs of the Lorimers. Perhaps she would have been more ready to renew the attack, had she known how really distressed and disturbed Gertrude had been by her words. [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER VIII. A DISTINGUISHED PERSON. "... _I can give no reason, nor I will not; More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathing I bear Antonio._" MERCHANT OF VENICE. One morning, towards the middle of March, the sisters were much excited at receiving a letter containing an order to photograph a picture in a studio at St. John's Wood. It was written in a small legible handwriting, was dated from The Sycamores, and signed, Sidney Darrell. "I wonder how he came to hear of us?" said Lucy, who cherished a particular admiration for the works of this artist. "Perhaps Mr. Jermyn knows him," answered Gertrude. "He would probably have spoken of him to us, if he did." "Here," said Gertrude, "is Mr. Jermyn to answer for himself." Frank, who had been admitted by Matilda, came into the waiting-room, where the sisters stood, a look as of the dawning spring-time in his vivid face and shining eyes. "I have brought the proofs from _The Woodcut_," he said, drawing a damp bundle from his painting-coat. The Lorimers always read the slips of the story he was illustrating, and then a general council was held to decide on the best incident for illustration. Lucy took the bundle and handed him the letter. "Aren't you tremendously pleased?" he said. "Do you know anything about this?" asked Lucy. "How?" "I mean, did you recommend us to him?" "Not I. This letter is simply the reward of well-earned fame." "Thank you, Mr. Jermyn; I really think you must be right. Do you know Sidney Darrell?" "I have met him. But he is a great swell, you know, Miss Lucy, and he is almost always abroad." "Yes," put in Gertrude; "his exquisite Venetian pictures!" "Oh, Darrell is a clever fellow. Too fond of the French school, perhaps, for my taste. And the curious thing is, that, though his work is every bit as solid as it is brilliant, there is something rather sensational about his reputation."