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subject a Venetian flower-girl, a vestal virgin, or a Venus, cannot for one moment be questioned.

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Then, again, save in his student days at the Academy or other art schools, the painter, unless he devote himself to classical subjects, paints only from the draped model. I remember how once only once, to my recollection young artist, at a mixed gathering of students, boasted of a liaison with one of the sisterhood; he was at once put into Coventry by the rest, many of whom were well known, in the general sense of the word, not to be by any means sans reproche.

Think twice, then, in future, before condemning a hardworking community, without whom the painter's efforts would be poor indeed; recollect, you do sometimes purchase and admire his pictures-nay, more; follow me a little further, and become better acquainted, in doing so, with yet a few more artists' models; for, remember, these-however rough they be —are true pictures taken from life of men and women I have known, and for whose services I am indebted.

Take poor Mary Ann, for instance. No matter what her surname was. She had a father, a widower, incapacitated by illness from work of any kind, and to support whom she tramped long weary miles day after day, going from studio to studio in quest of sittings. Nor was this all; she was not only a very fair musician, but had a good voice, and was thus able to add to her small incoming amounts as a model, lessons in singing or on the piano to the children of those artists to whom she had made her accomplishments known. Indeed, even to this she added still further, by becoming an agent for some enterprising city firm of tea-dealers, whose samples she carried with her, wherever she went, in a small black bag.

You will hardly associate the two, Mary Ann as the Maid of Athens, and the same girl in ordinary costume; yet in the eyes of those who knew her privately was she ever the same tender-hearted, devoted daughter, who spent the best years of her life (and a very hard life it was, too) in the service of her sorely-stricken parent.

While on the subject, I would hark back to yet another instance, which may raise the veil a little higher.

When I was a struggling student, having what was nominally

a studio, but actually a back room, with a skylight added, in the neighbourhood of Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, there was one Nellie Nellie the model-who was as regular a visitor as the milkman to the house in which that unpretentious studio was, the whole of which, in fact, was let out in flats to struggling sons of Apelles, whose circumstances were, from what she gathered when she went her rounds, as well known to her as to themselves.

POOR MARY ANN.

When they were in funds, Nellie naturally claimed precedence over passing models, it being quite astonishing how, as princess or peasant, she seemed equally well to pose. Then, again, when dealers would not look at their productions, when such hard times came round as necessitated dining off one's greatcoat, or looking on one's waistcoat as a relish for

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breakfast,-in other words, confiding one's wardrobe piecemeal to the care of 'one's uncle,'-then would Nellie be to the fore in her true colours as a woman; obtaining sittings from others more favoured by fortune than the little coterie to which she attached herself, she was ever anxious, though her offers were not always accepted, to share her scanty earnings with those who most needed help.

Although not personally indebted to Nellie to this extent, I think I was one of her favourites, since, when fortune frowned, and she had an inkling of it, she would come with a gentle little tap to my studio door, and ask if she could sit for me.

'You can pay me any time, you know.'

On several occasions, too, did she ask if I could give her a cup of tea, only to produce from her hand-bag, while the kettle was boiling, enough muffins and crumpets or sally-luns to satisfy the cravings of a giant. These she always 'professed' to have bought for herself, only her landlady-she lived in Warren Street, round the corner—had let her fire out.

'Immodest, improper, fearfully unfeminine!' I hear some one say. 'The little hussy, flinging her fickle favours round

about her wherever she went.'

So be it, Miss Prude. I shall, at least, be true to the memory of poor little Nellie the model, whose very innocence of motive, save her natural impulse to do good, has brought upon her your righteous condemnation.

Suddenly I remember it was during a severe winter-the visits of little Nellie became few and far between-it was bad times with the students just then, and they missed her voluntary sittings. She seemed the only one who thoroughly understood the uphill work it was to live. At length she came; but her bright eyes seemed to have lost their lustre, a hectic flush having taken the place of her hitherto healthy colour.

Then came a blank; the weeks passed, and the light of Bohemia seemed somehow obscured by her continued absence, so one of us sent a note asking her to give us sittings on a certain day.

The note was unanswered.

The day appointed came and went without our seeing her.

Probably some continuous sittings somewhere in the country had presented themselves, and she would return in a week or two; but it was unlike her not to have communicated her good fortune to us. So we waited, but Nellie never came.

Could she have abruptly left the neighbourhood without even having wished us good-bye? Some one called to inquire. She had; she had left us without so much as an adieu. She was dead! She had been buried a fortnight.

That was a sad evening with many of us, as we smoked our pipes round about the coke fires in our several studios. Poor little Nellie with her bright, cheery manner and hopeful assurances--would never come again to give us a helping hand in time of need. One or two of us, otherwise strong fellows enough, shed tears-we did, indeed. Weak-very weak. An absurd waste of sympathy, wasn't it, Miss Prude, for one so very immodest, eh? Yet, with all your vaunted virtue, when the great upheaval shall come, even Nellie-poor Nellie the model-may (I only say may, mind) wear as bright a crown as yours, Miss Prude-who knows?

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By the way, years after Nellie's death, I was comparing the old with the new; the Bohemia of the past with the æstheticism of the present, when my thoughts took a poetic turn, and developed as follows:

Oh, where are the friends I so tenderly cherished,
And the pipes which I coloured long summers ago?
The too fragile clay has in both cases perished,
Yet the embers of memory still are aglow.

The second-floor back where I painted those cattle,
And sold to a dealer for what he would give;
And that picture of Waterloo-after the battle-
Will haunt me like shadows as long as I live.

Then how I migrated to Fitzroy Street proper;
How Nellie the model bought muffins for tea;
How for weeks I went on without earning a copper,
Yet poor little Nell sat for nothing to me.

Then how I obtained from a neighbouring broker
A Chippendale chair, bust of Ajax, and urn;
A shield and a fender, two rugs and a poker,
And gave him 'historical works' in return.

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