I must skip a few years and speak of a drawing that appeared in _Punch_ in 1875,[4] and which has a special interest for me; it brings back to my mind a happy thought of du Maurier's, which is closely connected with a particularly happy thought of my own, that took root then and has flourished ever since.
[Footnote 4: Published by kind permission of the proprietors of _Punch_.]
I must explain that there was a time when I had to console myself with the reflection that the course of true love never runs smooth. A lady whom in my mind I had selected as a mother-in-law, by no means reciprocated my feelings of respect and goodwill. But the young lady, her daughter, fortunately sided with me, and had, in fact, given her very willing consent to the change in her mother's position which I had suggested. I was naturally anxious to assure that young lady as frequently and as emphatically as possible how much I appreciated her assistance, and how determined I was never to have any other mother-in-law but the one of my choice; nor could there be anything obscure in such a declaration, as of three sisters in the family that particular one was the only unmarried one. But neither in obscure nor in explicit language was I allowed to approach her; a blockade was declared and rigorously enforced, and we were soon separated by a distance of some few hundred miles.
I can look back complacently on the troubles of those days now that twenty years have elapsed since I emerged victorious from the contest; but then the future looked blank and bleak, and I felt nonplussed and down-hearted. Knowing, however, what a faint heart is said never to win, I was anxious to keep mine up to the mark, and with a view to stimulating its buoyancy I went to make a friendly call on du Maurier. He would, I felt sure, be sympathetic, and, whatever else might be wanting in that troublesome eye of his, there would be a certain vivifying twinkle in it that could always set me up.
It was as I expected, and I had the full benefit of the eye, and of an ear, too, that he lent willingly as I told him how matters stood.
"Well," he said, "if you can't smuggle in a letter, let's smuggle in your portrait. It will be rather a joke if she comes across you in _Punch_. I've just got a subject in which I can use you."