It is summer, we said, o’er all the land, and these are summer scenes, these closing scenes of ours. The winter of fickle Fortune has been with us in many of these pages. Our story has had more to do with storm than sunshine; this closing scene is the greenest and sunniest spot in our journey. We stand where we did at the opening of our story, within the shadow of Berne Hills. You know that modern mansion in the smiling vale of Avonworth, with its long gravelly drive, its half a mile of velvety lawn, its splendid park; its groups of cedars, birch trees, ash and sycamore; its ornamental lake, and those glorious bits of distant hill and dale in the ever-changing lights of this western land. Here, where we first saw that sweet, fair, _spirituel_ face, with the parted lips and the flowing hair; here, where we took you, dear reader, by the button-hole, to direct your attention to all that was picturesque and lovely in the hills and the valleys; here, where we introduced you to the leading people in our story; here, where we paused to mourn over that fine old merchant, dead of his golden sorrow; here, where we saw those love-passages between Lionel and Amy, and where we have sat beside the artist whilst he has limned those wood-side bits of beauty, heightened by his dreams of love; here, in this glorious summer-time, with all the familiar associations of the place upon us: here we call upon the prompter to whistle down that sombre-coloured scene and bring this poor drama to an end. In the room above the portico, looking down the drive and commanding the full range of those Berne Hills, we find Arthur Phillips in his new studio. Far different to that work-a-day room in the cathedral close, wealth has stepped in here to make art luxurious. This studio is a painting-room, drawing-room, library, all in one, as if the whole house had been ransacked for contributions to the master’s pet room. Cabinets, couches, statues, vases, rich curtains, a piano, curious clocks, mirrors, books in elaborate bindings, great portfolios, and a host of things that might in imagination have graced the room of some grand old Venetian painter of the classic days. From one corner, these many treasures are excluded by means of curtains of a neutral tint, which shut in a space where the artist works with whatever light he pleases, with the Berne Hills before him, or with nothing but the light of day upon his canvas--so perfect and unique are his arrangements.