coloured, and very elegantly and artistically handled.

'I see your heart is in your work, Mrs. Graham,' observed I: 'I
must beg you to go on with it; for if you suffer our presence to
interrupt you, we shall be constrained to regard ourselves as
unwelcome intruders.'

'Oh, no!' replied she, throwing her brush on to the table, as if
startled into politeness. 'I am not so beset with visitors but
that I can readily spare a few minutes to the few that do favour me
with their company.'

'You have almost completed your painting,' said I, approaching to
observe it more closely, and surveying it with a greater degree of
admiration and delight than I cared to express. 'A few more
touches in the foreground will finish it, I should think. But why
have you called it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell
Hall, -shire?' I asked, alluding to the name she had traced in
small characters at the bottom of the canvas.

But immediately I was sensible of having committed an act of
impertinence in so doing; for she coloured and hesitated; but after
a moment's pause, with a kind of desperate frankness, she replied:-

'Because I have friends - acquaintances at least - in the world,
from whom I desire my present abode to be concealed; and as they
might see the picture, and might possibly recognise the style in
spite of the false initials I have put in the corner, I take the
precaution to give a false name to the place also, in order to put
them on a wrong scent, if they should attempt to trace me out by