Season after season he still bravely struggled on, never depressed, never hopeless while he was before his easel, until at last the day of reward--how long and painfully wrought for!--actually arrived.

A small picture of a very insignificant subject--being only a kitchen "interior," with a sleek cat on a dresser, stealing milk from the tea-tray during the servant's absence--was benevolently marked "doubtful" by the Hanging Committee; was thereupon kept in reserve, in case it might happen to fit any forgotten place near the floor--did fit such a place--and was really hung up, as Mr.Blyth's little unit of a contribution to the one thousand and odd works exhibited to the public, that year, by the Royal Academy.
But Valentine's triumph did not end here.

His picture of the treacherous cat stealing the household milk--entitled, by way of appealing jocosely to the strong Protestant interest, "The Jesuit in the Family,"-- was really sold to an Art-Union prize-holder for ten pounds.

Once furnished with a bank note won by his own brush, Valentine indulged in the most extravagant anticipations of future celebrity and future wealth; and proved, recklessly enough, that he believed as firmly as any other visionary in the wildest dreams of his own imagination, by marrying, and setting up an establishment, on the strength of the success which had been achieved by "The Jesuit in the Family." He had been for some time past engaged to the lady who had now become Mrs.Valentine Blyth.

She was the youngest of eight sisters, who formed part of the family of a poor engraver, and who, in the absence of any mere money qualifications, were all rich alike in the ownership of most magnificent Christian names.