"And why has no one of them ever been finished?--Here are six or eight
beginnings, and all, more or less, like, I should think, and not one of
them more than half done. Why have I been treated so cavalierly, Miss
Maud?"

The fair artist's colour deepened a little; but her smile was quite as
sweet as it was saucy, as she replied--

"Girlish caprice, I suppose. I like neither of them; and of that which
a woman dislikes, she will have none. To be candid, however, I hardly
think there is one of them all that does you justice."

"No?--what fault have you to find with this? This might be worked up to
something very natural."

"It would be _a_ natural, then--it wants expression, fearfully."

"And this, which is still better. That might be finished while I am
here, and I will give you some sittings."

"Even mother dislikes _that_--there is too much of the Major of
Foot in it. Mr. Woods says it is a martial picture."

"And ought not a soldier to look like a soldier? To me, now, that seems
a capital beginning."

"It is not what mother, or Beulah--or father--or even any of us wants.
It is too full of Bunker's Hill. Your friends desire to see you as you
appear to _them_; not as you appear to your enemies."