'It's not flattered,' she said, slowly. 'But I can't say it isn't like you, Bella.'
'Oh, I knew _you'd_ say something like that, mother!' said the daughter, scornfully. She stooped and threw a shawl round her shoulders; gathered up some working materials and a book with which she had been toying during the sitting; and then straightened herself with an air at once tragic and absurd.
'Well, good-bye, Mr. Fenwick.' She turned to the painter. 'I'd rather not sit again, please.'
'I shouldn't think of asking you, Miss Morrison,' murmured the young man, moving aside to let her pass.
'Hullo, hullo! what's all this?' said a cheery voice at the door. 'Bella, where are you off to? Is the sitting done?'
'It's been going on two hours, papa, so I should think I'd had about enough,' said Miss Bella, making for the door.
'I say, we _are_ smart!--aren't we, mamma? Well, now then--let me have a look.'
And drawing the unwilling girl once more towards the painter, he detained her while he scrutinised the picture.
'Do I squint, papa?' said Miss Morrison, with her head haughtily turned away.
'_Have_ I got the colour of a barmaid, and a waist like Fanny's?' Fanny was the Morrison's housemaid, and was not slim.
Bella's chin mounted still higher; her foot once more beat the ground impatiently, while her father looked from the picture to her, and back again.
Then he released her with a laugh. 'You may run away, child, if you want to. Upon my word, Fenwick, you're advancing! You are: no doubt about that. Some of the execution there is astonishing. But all the same I don't see you earning your bread-and-butter at portrait-painting; and I guess you don't either.'
The speaker threw out a thin hand and patted Fenwick on the shoulder, returning immediately to a close examination of the picture.
'I told you, sir, I should only paint portraits if I were compelled!' said the young man, in a proud, muffled voice. He began to gather up his things and clean his palette.
'But of course you'll be compelled--unless you wish to die "clemmed," as we say in Lancashire,' returned the other, briskly. 'What do _you_ say, mamma?'
He turned towards his wife, pushing up his spectacles to look at her. He was a tall man, a little bent at the shoulders from long years of desk-work; and those who saw him for the first time were apt to be struck by a certain eager volatility of aspect--expressed by the small head on its thin neck, by the wavering blue eyes, and smiling mouth--not perhaps common in the chief cashiers of country banks.