Part 11 (2/2)

'I think I have caught it now,' said Miss La Creevy 'The very shade! This will be the sweetest portrait I have ever done, certainly'

'It will be your genius that

'No, no, I won't allow that, my dear,' rejoined Miss La Creevy 'It's a very nice subject-a very nice subject, indeed-though, of course, so depends upon the mode of treatment'

'And not a little,' observed Kate

'Why, ht there,' said Miss La Creevy, 'in the h I don't allow that it is of such very great importance in the present case Ah! The difficulties of Art, reat'

'They ood-natured little friend

'They are beyond anything you can form the faintest conception of,' replied Miss La Creevy 'What with bringing out eyes with all one's power, and keeping down noses with all one's force, and adding to heads, and taking away teeth altogether, you have no idea of the trouble one little miniature is'

'The remuneration can scarcely repay you,' said Kate

'Why, it does not, and that's the truth,' answered Miss La Creevy; 'and then people are so dissatisfied and unreasonable, that, nine ti them Sometimes they say, ”Oh, how very serious you have made me look, Miss La Creevy!” and at others, ”La, Miss La Creevy, how very sood portrait is, that it , or it's no portrait at all'

'Indeed!' said Kate, laughing

'Certainly, my dear; because the sitters are always either the one or the other,' replied Miss La Creevy 'Look at the Royal Acadeentlemen in black velvet waistcoats, with their fists doubled up on round tables, or marble slabs, are serious, you know; and all the ladies who are playing with little parasols, or little dogs, or little children-it's the sa In fact,' said Miss La Creevy, sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, 'there are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk; and ays use the serious for professional people (except actors soentle clever'

Kate seehly a and talking, with immovable complacency

'What a nu herself of a pause in the discourse, and glancing round the room

'Nu up from her work 'Character portraits, oh yes-they're not real military men, you know'

'No!'

'Bless your heart, of course not; only clerks and that, who hire a unifor Soe seven-and-sixpence extra for hire and caritih she plu to these lures to catch sitters, Miss La Creevy applied herself,her head occasionally, to look with unspeakable satisfaction at so Miss Nickleby to understand what particular feature she was at work upon, at the moment; 'not,' she expressly observed, 'that you should , my dear, but because it's our custom sometimes to tell sitters what part we are upon, in order that if there's any particular expression they want introduced, they may throw it in, at the time, you know'

'And when,' said Miss La Creevy, after a long silence, to wit, an interval of full a ain?'

'I scarcely know; I had expected to have seen him before now,' replied Kate 'Soon I hope, for this state of uncertainty is worse than anything'

'I suppose he has money, hasn't he?' inquired Miss La Creevy

'He is very rich, I have heard,' rejoined Kate 'I don't know that he is, but I believe so'

'Ah, you may depend upon it he is, or he wouldn't be so surly,' remarked Miss La Creevy, as an odd little mixture of shrewdness and sienerally pretty independent'

'His h!' cried Miss La Creevy, 'a porcupine's a featherbed to hie'

'It is only his manner, I believe,' observed Kate, timidly; 'he was disappointed in early life, I think I have heard, or has had his temper soured by some calamity I should be sorry to think ill of hiht and proper,' observed the miniature painter, 'and Heaven forbid that I should be the cause of your doing so! But, now,it himself, make you and your mama some nice little allowance that would keep you both comfortable until you ell married, and be a little fortune to her afterwards? What would a hundred a year for instance, be to him?'

'I don't knohat it would be to hiy, 'but it would be that to me I would rather die than take'

'Heyday!' cried Miss La Creevy

'A dependence upon him,' said Kate, 'would eradation'

'Well!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy 'This of a relation whom you will not hear an indifferent person speak ill of, h, I confess'

'I dare say it does,' replied Kate, speaking ently, 'indeed I as and recollection of better times upon me, I could not bear to live on anybody's bounty-not his particularly, but anybody's'

Miss La Creevy looked slyly at her companion, as if she doubted whether Ralph hi that her young friend was distressed, made no remark

'I only ask of him,' continued Kate, whose tears fell while she spoke, 'that he will move so little out of his way, in my behalf, as to enable me by his recommendation-only by his recommendation-to earn, literally, my bread and reain, depends upon the fortunes of my dear brother; but if he will do this, and Nicholas only tells us that he is well and cheerful, I shall be contented'

As she ceased to speak, there was a rustling behind the screen which stood between her and the door, and some person knocked at the wainscot'

'Come in, whoever it is!' cried Miss La Creevy

The person coave to view the form and features of no less an individual than Mr Ralph Nickleby hi sharply at the so loud, that I was unable to make you hear'

When theat his heart, he had a trick of al brows, for an instant, and then displaying them in their full keenness As he did so now, and tried to keep down the smile which parted his thin compressed lips, and puckered up the bad lines about his mouth, they both felt certain that some part, if not the whole, of their recent conversation, had been overheard

'I called in, onto find you here,' said Ralph, addressing his niece, and looking contemptuously at the portrait 'Is that my niece's portrait, ma'am?'

'Yes it is, Mr Nickleby,' said Miss La Creevy, with a very sprightly air, 'and between you and me and the post, sir, it will be a very nice portrait too, though I say it who am the painter'

'Don't trouble yourself to show it toaway, 'I have no eye for likenesses Is it nearly finished?'

'Why, yes,' replied Miss La Creevy, considering with the pencil end of her brush in her s more will-'

'Have them at once, ma'am,' said Ralph 'She'll have no time to idle over fooleries after tomorrow Work, s, ma'am?'

'I have not put a bill up yet, sir'