take them out to lunch. There was an old man who copied Hogarth, he
was madly in love with a young woman who copied Rossetti. But she was
in love with an academy student who patronised all the girls and spent
his time in correcting their drawings. A little further away was
another old man who copied Turner. By a special permission he came at
eight o'clock, two hours before the galleries were open. It was said
that with a tree from one picture, a foreground from another, a piece
of distance from a third, a sky from a fourth, he had made a picture
which had taken in the Academicians, and had been hung in Burlington
House as an original work by Crome. Most of his work was done before
the students entered the galleries; he did very little after ten
o'clock; he pottered round from easel to easel chattering; but he
never imparted the least of his secrets. He knew how to evade
questions, and after ten minutes' cross-examination he would say 'Good
morning,' and leave the student no wiser than he was before. A legend
was in circulation that to imitate Turner's rough surfaces he covered
his canvas with plaster of Paris and glazed upon it.

The little life of the galleries was alive with story. Walter was a
fair young man with abundant hair and conversation. Elsie hung about
his easel. He covered a canvas with erratic blots of colour and quaint
signs, but his plausive eloquence carried him through, and Elsie
thought more highly of his talents than he did of hers. They were
garrulous one as the other, and it was pleasant to see them strolling
about the galleries criticising and admiring, until Elsie said:

'Now, Walter, I must get back to my work, and don't you think it would
be better if you went on with yours?'

So far as Mildred could see, Elsie's life seemed from the beginning to