The junior clerk is going to
do all my sampling work for me in the morning; and we are to meet in
the afternoon, after I have come away from you, at a chop-house; and
then go back to the office as if we had been together all day, just as
usual. Ever yours, Z. THORPE, JUN.--P. S. My mind's made up: if the
worst comes to the worst, I shall leave home."
"Oh, dear me! oh, dear! dear me!" says Valentine, mournfully rubbing
his palette clean with a bit of rag. "What will it all end in, I
wonder. Old Thorpe's going just the way, with his obstinate severity,
to drive Zack to something desperate. Coming here to-morrow, he says?"
continues Mr. Blyth, approaching the smallest of the two pictures,
placed on easels at opposite extremities of the room. "Coming
to-morrow! He never dates his notes; but I suppose, as this one came
last night, to-morrow means to-day."
Saying these words with eyes absently fixed on his picture, Valentine
withdraws the sheet stretched over the canvas, and discloses a
Classical Landscape of his own composition.
If Mr. Blyth had done nothing else in producing the picture which now
confronted him, he had at least achieved one great end of all Classic
Art, by reminding nobody of anything simple, familiar, or pleasing to
them in nature.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73