‘I hope you are not over-exerting yourself, my dear madam,’ the old painter said. ‘I am struck dumb by your energy. Where I produce one little picture you exhibit half-a-dozen. I admire, but I fear; and, if you will let an old man say so, you must take care not to overwork your brain.’ Tears sprang to the padrona’s eyes; but she kept them fixed steadily on her block, so that the old cynic, who, no doubt, knew all the commonplaces about women’s tears, should not see them. She said, with all the composure she was mistress of, ‘You and I are very different, Mr. Welby. Your one picture, of course, is more than worth my half-dozen; but one must do what one can.’ ‘No one knows better than I what Mrs. Severn can do,’ said the R. A., with one of those smiles for which the padrona could have strangled him. ‘I was but taking the privilege of my age to warn you against overwork,--which is the grand disease of these times, and kills more people than cholera does. Pardon me. I want to speak to you about young Renton, in whom I know you take an interest. I advised him,’ Mr. Welby said, slowly, ‘to give up all idea of producing anything for the moment, and to devote himself to preparatory work,--hard work.’ ‘So he told me,’ said the padrona, with a little spirit; for there was no mistaking the implied blame in old Welby’s tone. ‘And so I told him, too.’ ‘Then somebody has been undermining us, my dear madam,’ said the R. A. ‘Somebody has been egging up the foolish boy to make a name for himself, and win fame, and so forth. Forrester brings me word that he has begun a great picture. High art, life-size, Edith finding the body of Harold. The young fellow must be mad.’ ‘Edith finding the body of Harold!’ repeated Mrs. Severn, bewildered;--and then, what with her personal agitation, what with the curious anti-climax of this announcement after her fears about Laurie, the padrona, we are obliged to confess, burst into a sudden fit of nervous laughter. She laughed till the tears came into her eyes; and, to be sure, old Welby had no way of knowing how near to the surface were those tears before. ‘I confess I do not see the joke,’ he said, slowly. ‘Of course I have nothing to do with the boy. If he goes and makes a fool of himself, like so many others, it is nothing to me. Indeed, I don’t know who advised him to come here, where one can’t help seeing what he’s about. He would have been a great deal better, and out of one’s way, had he stayed at Kensington Gore.’ ‘He was paying four guineas a-week for his rooms at Kensington Gore,’ said the padrona, meekly. ‘It was I who advised him to come to Charlotte Street. A man cannot live on nothing. If he had given all his income for rent----’