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"Oh!" he whispered to himself as he paused for an instant where the moon shone clearest on the landing; and looked down on her "Oh! if my poor Lavvie could only see little Mary now." They laid her, still asleep, on the bed, and covered her over lightly with a shawl then went down stairs again to wait for Mrs. Peckover. The clown's wife came in half an hour, as she had promised.
I'll show her her place, and give her the drawing-board. Wait a minute, Lavvie! Let me prop you up comfortably with the pillows before you begin. There! I never saw a more beautiful effect of light and shade, my dear, than there is on your view of the model. Has everybody got a port-crayon and two bits of chalk? Yes, everybody has.
Blyth's door; and her father entered, sniffing with a certain perpetual cold of his which nothing could cure bowing, kissing his hand, and frightened up-stairs by the company, just as his daughter had predicted. "Oh, Lavvie! the Dowager Countess is downstairs, and her ladyship likes the pictures," exclaimed the old man, snuffling and smiling infirmly in a flutter of nervous glee.
On the first day when, in obedience to her wishes, he sat before his picture again the half-finished picture from which he had been separated for so many months on that first day, when the friendly occupation of his life seemed suddenly to have grown strange to him; when his brush wandered idly among the colors, when his tears dropped fast on the palette every time he looked down on it; when he tried hard to work as usual, though only for half an hour, only on simple background places in the composition; and still the brush made false touches, and still the tints would not mingle as they should, and still the same words, repeated over and over again, would burst from his lips: "Oh, poor Lavvie! oh, poor, dear, dear Lavvie!" even then, the spirit of that beloved art, which he had always followed so humbly and so faithfully, was true to its divine mission, and comforted and upheld him at the last bitterest moment when he laid down his palette in despair.
I'll make her as happy as the day is long. I've no child of my own: I'll watch over her, and love her, and teach her all my life. I've got a poor, suffering, bedridden wife at home, who would think such a companion as little Mary the greatest blessing God could send her. My own dear, patient Lavvie!
And this is reason enough, I think, for my marrying her, even if the worst should take place. But I always have hoped for the best, as you know, father: and I mean to go on hoping for poor Lavvie, just the same as ever!" What could old Mr. Blyth, what could any man of heart and honor, oppose to such an answer as this? Nothing.
Blyth's couch, surveyed his drawing-boards, his lamps, and the plaster cast set up for his pupils to draw from, with bland artistic triumph. "Now, Lavvie," he said, "before Zack comes and confuses me, I'll just check off all the drawing things one after another, to make sure that nothing's left down stairs in the studio, which ought to be up here." As her husband said these words, Mrs.
"Just stop me, Lavvie, if I miss anything out, in making sure that I've got all that's wanted for everybody's drawing lesson," said Valentine, preparing to reckon up the list of his materials correctly, by placing his right forefinger on his left thumb. "First, there's the statue that all my students are to draw from the Dying Gladiator. Secondly, the drawing-boards and paper.
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