'We 're to be "the artist of the day," Gower Woodseer says, and we get
an attachment to the dreariest; we are to study "small variations of the
commonplace"--dear me! But he may be right. The "sky of lead and
scraped lead" over those lines, he points out; and it's not a bad trick
for reconciling us to gloomy English weather. You take lessons from
him?'

'I can always learn from him,' said Carinthia.

Fleetwood depicted his plodding Gower at the tussle with account-books.
She was earnest in sympathy; not awake to the comical; dull as the
clouds, dull as the discourse. Yet he throbbed for being near her
took impression of her figure, the play of her features, the carriage of
her body.

He was shut from her eyes. The clear brown eyes gave exchange of looks;
less of admission than her honest maid's.

Madge and the miracle infant awaited them on the terrace. For so foreign
did the mother make herself to him, that the appearance of the child,
their own child, here between them, was next to miraculous; and the
mother, who might well have been the most astonished, had transparently
not an idea beyond the verified palpable lump of young life she lifted in
her arms out of the arms of Madge, maternally at home with its presence
on earth.

Demonstrably a fine specimen, a promising youngster. The father was
allowed to inspect him. This was his heir: a little fellow of smiles,
features, puckered brows of inquiry; seeming a thing made already, and