Nothing could be more unlike the conventional idea of an artist than Mr. Eardley's appearance, so far as dress was concerned. His classical profile and hyacinthine locks were all that could be looked for in those Greek heroes whom he loved to paint; indeed, it was said, and not without truth, that his looking-glass supplied him with the best models. But in his costume he not merely despised the velvet shooting-coat and general looseness of garb which are supposed to be characteristic of his calling, but affected a neatness and precision which were in strong contrast with the prevailing loudness of taste. He was a man of excellent education and information, who had taken up the profession of a painter simply because it was the first that came to his hand, and who had continued it because he saw his way to large prices and high social position, but who had talent and pluck enough to have succeeded in several other callings had he felt so disposed. Mr. Eardley's talent was, moreover, of a very different kind from that of Spiridion Pratt, and although the latter was always putting himself forward, whilst the former never made any public appearance outside his adopted art, Mr. Eardley's self-contained reticence was regarded as evidence of much more power than Mr. Pratt's perpetual attempts. There were few men to whom the world had shown so much of its sunny side, fewer still who would have been so little spoiled by the indulgence. Dick Tinto and Jack Whitewash, with their tobacco-smelling beards, their paint-bedaubed jackets, and their dirty hands, and their companions of the Palette Club, used to revile Frank Eardley, calling him swell and stuck-up beast; but when the first lay ill for six weeks with the fever, it was Frank's purse which induced the doctor to come in and the broker's man to go out; and when Jack Whitewash swaggered about the good position awarded to his picture at the Academy, he little knew that it was owing to Frank's interposition with the council. Eardley mixed but little with men of his own profession, though he took much interest in all its charitable and social institutions at the periodical gatherings, where he spoke with great readiness and fluency; and though he went a great deal into society he had but very few intimates. For Nugent Uffington, Eardley entertained a great liking; the kindness shown to him by Nugent at their first meeting had touched him very deeply, and there was something in Uffington's solitude and isolation--which was even more noticeable now in the midst of the London world than it had been in the wild and uncivilised regions where they first formed acquaintance--that called forth his pity and admiration. Since Nugent's return, a day seldom passed without the friends meeting. Uffington would sit for hours in Eardley's studio, smoking countless cigarettes and watching his friend at work; their talk was always of the frankest and most open