It was a bright, sunny afternoon in the latter part of August, and the sun played amongst the leaves of the old oak-tree, keeping the artist’s eye and hand rapidly at work. And never had Arthur Phillips watched the sunny gleams with more intense interest. A tramp with his slovenly wife, wandering out of the footpath to find a cool shelter for rest, stood to look at the artist for a moment; and a couple of school-boys, who had been fishing for minnows in the adjacent brook, sat down quietly in the grass, and lazily watched the glowing canvas. It would have made a pretty picture this, of the artist and his spectators. But Phillips was soon alone again; he was too severe and earnest for the school-boys. A squirrel ventured to peep at him from a branch in the oak-tree, and a couple of mice whisked by him, and squeaked beneath the leaves of the broad burdock. A stupid moth lit upon the wet stump of his painted tree and spoiled its pretty wings. How quiet, how peaceful it was, how thoroughly the country! By-and-by Arthur leaned back on his camp-stool and thought so; and his heart was grateful for the running brook, the whispering trees, the broad expanse of distant hills and meadows, and above all for the sympathy which he possessed in his own nature for the beautiful and sublime. The sun disappeared behind a cloud for a few minutes, leaving the oak-tree almost in its own natural colour, and showing the artist’s successful touches. However far short of the reality, the canvas held some wonderful sunny effects: the leaves of the grand old tree were fairly illuminated, as if gleams of sunshine had gone through them, indicating almost the fibres of the lower branches. No man knew how far art is below nature; no painter felt more the inferiority of a picture when compared with the ever-changing and always beautiful reality: but Arthur Phillips knew when he had achieved something beyond the ordinary work, and he was pleased that his labour on this occasion had been successful; for Arthur was now actually painting for money. He had long since ceased to accept commissions, except for subjects of his own selection, and had painted more for the love of his art than for what his art would bring. The drudgery of painting had been got over long ago: the years of patient industry and unrewarded toil; the pictures returned from the Academy unhung; the adverse criticism when at last they were hung: all this had long since been at an end, and Arthur Phillips left to select his subjects and name his own price for his pictures. But on this bright day in August the artist sat once more hard at work, painting for money, painting for subsistence. For not only had he been induced to invest largely in Overton, Baker, & Co., but he had a deposit account at their local branch in his native city of Severntown, and the branch had succumbed to the same monetary pressure which had swamped the head concern. And Arthur Phillips was nearly penniless.