How the coals, which the greengrocer sent in a sack to me,
Calling over and over again to be paid;

And the other small bills which I had all come back to me,
As ghosts of a past which must never be laid.

And now, what a change! In a land where the lily
In too, too profusion the senses enthralls,
I've a sanctum bedeck'd with the daffy-down-dilly;
The plumage of peacocks emblazons the walls.

The choicest of china, on brackets, Queen Anne-ish,
The tenderest teacups on tables of buhl;
Thus the primitive joys of the student must vanish
Before the advance of this latter-day school.

But although I'm surrounded by lovely blue vases,
A slave to a teapot endeavour to be;
Subscribe to those changes, whatever the cause is,
Which fashion insists on imposing on me;

Still in memory's mirror are blended strange fancies-
A nimbus has shed its ethereal glow

On Nellie the model, whose spirit entrances

As once in Bohemia long summers ago.

Of Italian models there are enough and to spare in London, both male and female; the latter appearing, as a rule, either to be more refined naturally, or belonging to a somewhat better class than the men.

In the early days of the Italian invasion of Saffron Hill, Holborn, which is their headquarters, they were remarkable for wearing their picturesque national costume, but now-a-days they affect the conventional costume of Londoners, only bringing to the studios when necessary their sheepskins, bagpipes, gaiters, or, on the other hand, parti-coloured aprons, petticoats, and bodices, wrapped up in brown paper.

In my experience I never met an ordinarily pretty Italian model; they are either perfectly lovely, or, to say the least of it, absolutely plain. Nor do the most beautiful, as a rule, retain their good looks after four or five-and-twenty.

I knew, some years ago, the daughter of an Italian doctor, who was sent to a high-class school in England to finish her education, as far as certain accomplishments were concerned, prior to her returning to Naples, where her marriage with an exceedingly unprepossessing and hoary-headed Italian noble

man had been arranged by her matchmaking parents to take place, much against their daughter's will, she having for that rich elderly Adonis the greatest repugnance.

Personally, she was of great beauty, and much beloved for her winning manners by her schoolfellows.

Now it turned out that, with other advanced pupils and a chaperon, she was sent on certain days to have lessons in painting in the studio of an artist of some repute, and it was

here, strangely enough, that she met her fate in the shape of one of that artist's models, a particularly handsome young man of about three-and-twenty. I knew him well, he had often sat for me. He was in appearance what one might conceive to be a fair young naval officer.

How it came about that they avoided the vigilance of her guardian and the artist himself, must remain untold; suffice it to say, 'love will find out the way.'

R

They met from time to time clandestinely, and were ultimately married.

When her father heard of the unexpected turn events had taken, he immediately disinherited her, and nothing was left but to adopt the precarious profession of her husband, and exchange the prospective pleasures of 'a palace lifting to eternal summers,' such as Claude Melnotte describes to Pauline, for the second-floor back in Chelsea, where they now reside.

I shall again touch on the subject of Italian models, and would now call your special atten

tion to a gentleman who shall be known by his military title of 'the Colonel.'

Dressed in the seediest, seamiest suit of black, with a hat which evidently owed its brilliancy to the application of oil; a jaunty, but faded tie, fastened with a huge brass pin; and boots, the ventilation of which let out the secret that socks were conspicuous by their absence-stood 'the Colonel.'

On the occasion of his first introduction to me, shabby genteel as he was, I could see at a glance that he was no ordinary model; indeed, so doubtful was I that he was a model at all, that, at once noticing my momentary perplexity, he said—

THE COLONEL.

IM

'Ah! that's the worst of it-found me out at a glance; people invariably do, somehow. Don't look as if I'd been to Poole's lately, still in five minutes men treat me as their equal, and become quite apologetic when paying me my ordinary shilling an hour, whereas to me it's a perfect godsend.'

The story of the Colonel's' life, briefly told, is a curious one. He went up like a rocket, and came down like a stick; in India he distinguished himself so much in several successive engagements, that he won-not only rapid promotion, but the

heart of the daughter of one of England's most illustrious generals. For a time all went merry as a marriage bell; then came the Bottle Imp and turned the tide.

Yes, it was the spirit of S. and B.- —as he put it—which had been his ruin, cards, as a natural consequence, playing their part too in the dissipation of his means, till, beggared and miserable, he had to resign his commission. He next obtained some important civil appointment in Calcutta ; this, however, from the same cause soon fell through. Anxiety now began to tell on the constitution of his frail young wife, who ultimately died of a broken heart. Thus, utterly demoralised and crushed, he came to England, to find himself, as he said, very justly shunned by all who had formerly known him; sinking so rapidly in the social scale as to be obliged, before many months were over, to take up the profession of an artist's model.

I am here reminded that about the time 'the Colonel' was sitting for me, there was yet another model who had once been a fifth-rate prize-fighter, whose physique and capacity for beer were equally vast. One day, returning to my studio, I was met by the charwoman,-who had been paying her weekly visit, who gasped out as I entered—

'There's two of 'em inside, sir; one in the hanty-room, and the other in the studyo.'

'Two what?'

'Two muddles, sir; both of 'em's drunk. They're fast asleep; I wouldn't have waked 'em for anything.'

On reaching the 'hanty-room,' as the domestic drudge graphically put it, I found my herculean friend loudly snoring in unharmonious tones, sleeping off soundly the effects of his morning's potations. I then betook myself to the studio, where I found 'the Colonel' similarly occupied, and not having been content with the 'twopennyworths' of Irish which had brought him to that unenviable condition, he had evidently been sniffing about in my cupboards during my absence for yet another nip, as on the table beside him were a wine bottle and glass, the latter only partially emptied. From its appearance he must have mistaken it for sherry-it was pale drying oil.

I very vividly remember that particular occasion, since, as he sat there, asleep as he was, he afforded me a subject for a