had made a compact with her sulky maids that when it began she would do
no more than sleep and breakfast at home. She would spend her days in
the Campden Hill studio, and sup on a tray--anywhere. On these terms,
they grudgingly allowed her to occupy her own house.

The studio in which she worked was on the top of Campden Hill, and
opened into one of the pleasant gardens of that neighbourhood. Her
uncle, Charles Bentley, an elderly Academician, with an ugly, humorous
face, red hair, red eyebrows, a black skull-cap, and a general weakness
for the female sex, was very fond of his niece Doris, and inclined to
think her a neglected and underrated wife. He was too fond of his own
comfort, however, to let Meadows perceive this opinion of his; still
less did he dare express it to Doris. All he could do was to befriend
her and make her welcome at the studio, to advise her about her
illustrations, and correct her drawing when it needed it. He himself was
an old-fashioned artist, quite content to be "mid" or even "early"
Victorian. He still cultivated the art of historical painting, and was
still as anxious as any contemporary of Frith to tell a story. And as
his manner was no less behind the age than his material, his pictures
remained on his hands, while the "vicious horrors," as they seemed to
him, of the younger school held the field and captured the newspapers.
But as he had some private means, and no kith or kin but his niece, the
indifference of the public to his work caused him little disturbance.
He pleased his own taste, allowing himself a good-natured contempt for
the work which supplanted him, coupled with an ever-generous hand for
any post-Impressionist in difficulties.

On the August afternoon when Doris, escaping at last from her maids and
her accounts, made her way up to the studio, for some hours' work on the
last three or four illustrations wanted for a Christmas book, Uncle