could. They bustled about together and got out the cups and saucers
and made the kettle boil. I know they felt as if they were waiting
on my servant, and when the tea was prepared I said: "He'll have a
cup, please--he's tired." Mrs. Monarch brought him one where he
stood, and he took it from her as if he had been a gentleman at a
party, squeezing a crush-hat with an elbow.

Then it came over me that she had made a great effort for me--made it
with a kind of nobleness--and that I owed her a compensation. Each
time I saw her after this I wondered what the compensation could be.
I couldn't go on doing the wrong thing to oblige them. Oh, it WAS
the wrong thing, the stamp of the work for which they sat--Hawley was
not the only person to say it now. I sent in a large number of the
drawings I had made for "Rutland Ramsay," and I received a warning
that was more to the point than Hawley's. The artistic adviser of
the house for which I was working was of opinion that many of my
illustrations were not what had been looked for. Most of these
illustrations were the subjects in which the Monarchs had figured.
Without going into the question of what HAD been looked for, I saw at
this rate I shouldn't get the other books to do. I hurled myself in
despair upon Miss Churm, I put her through all her paces. I not only
adopted Oronte publicly as my hero, but one morning when the Major
looked in to see if I didn't require him to finish a figure for the
Cheapside, for which he had begun to sit the week before, I told him
that I had changed my mind--I would do the drawing from my man. At
this my visitor turned pale and stood looking at me. "Is HE your
idea of an English gentleman?" he asked.

I was disappointed, I was nervous, I wanted to get on with my work;
so I replied with irritation: "Oh, my dear Major--I can't be ruined