_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._] He told me that the easels and palettes are all old friends--the Academy box on the floor is chipped and cut about, and goes back to the forties. It is not worth a shilling; but a big cheque wouldn't buy it. Packed against the walls near the floor are scores of canvases, studies innumerable, old time and present-time first artistic "thoughts." "Nancy Macintosh" is particularly interesting, because it is one of the artist's figure studies of the time when his work was just becoming to be recognised--1836. Nancy was painted in Cumberland under Cross Fell, and is a good type of the women who used to go up and milk the cows for the drovers, who--it is much to be regretted--used to exchange their employers' milk for nips of whisky! The Academy pictures are even now well forward. I was just looking at one of these--a bridge scene, and a subject the artist assured me he had long been wanting to paint--when I turned towards Mr. Cooper again and found him in the act of lifting a large canvas on to the easel. He would not allow me to assist him. [Illustration: THE STUDIO. _From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._] "That," he said, after it had been securely placed on the easel, "is to be the picture of my life! The subject is 'The High Hills, or the Refuge for the Wild Goats,' from the 104th Psalm. It is not finished yet. The notion occurred to me when last in Switzerland. I had to go up the mountain some four hours' journey before I reached the spot from which the idea is partly composed. We went as high as the goats would go in order to get the moss, heather, and different grasses on which they feed. As far as the goats are concerned, I obtained the principal ones when in North Wales." [Illustration: NANCY MACINTOSH. _From an early Drawing by T.S. Cooper, R.A._] A flood of renewed light came in at the studio window--for the afternoon was still young--and Mr. Cooper stood for a moment by the side of the picture and was thus photographed. The light lit up the canvas--so I left Mr. Cooper at work, and spent the afternoon in wandering about the Brotherhood Farm, where some of his sheep and cows are to be found. It is a farm possessing a distinct interest, for on a grassy slope by the side of one of its meadows is situated the well of the Black Prince--a well roofed in by modern brick, over which the ivy is growing, a sublimely picturesque corner, where the first bearer of the motto "Ich Dien" was wont to come and bathe his eyes. "Why, sir," said the old Sub-Prior with pardonable pride when showing me the well, "people send from all over the world for that water, and the last gentleman that had it was Mr. Sidney Cooper, the painter." Mr. Cooper told me that he obtained the water for a young lady in his family.