as well wish for a star out of heaven, for if he were to ask that
girl to sit to him she would probably scream with horror; she
would run to her confessor, and the clergy would be up in arms.
Rodney had put the girl out of his head, and had gone on with his
design for an altar. But luck had followed him for this long
while, and a few days afterwards he had met the pretty clerk in a
tea-room. He had not seen her face before, and he did not know who
it was until she turned to go, and as she was paying for her tea
at the desk he asked her if Mr. Lawrence were in town. He could
see that she was pleased at being spoken to. Her eyes were alert,
and she told him that she knew he was doing altars for Father
McCabe, and Father McCabe was a cousin of hers, and her father had
a cheese-monger's shop, and their back windows overlooked the mews
in which Rodney had his studio.

"How late you work! Sometimes your light does not go out until
twelve o'clock at night."

Henceforth he met her at tea in the afternoons, and they went to
the museum together, and she promised to try to get leave from her
father and mother to sit to him for a bust. But she could only sit
to him for an hour or two before she went to Mr. Lawrence, and
Rodney said that she would be doing him an extraordinary favour if
she would get up some hours earlier and sit to him from eight till
ten. It was amusing to do the bust, but the bust was only a
pretext. What he wanted her to do was to sit for the nude, and he
could not help trying to persuade her, though he did not believe
for a moment that he would succeed. He took her to the museum and
he showed her the nude, and told her how great ladies sat for
painters in the old times. He prepared the way very carefully, and