'A little humouring of Pussy's points! I'm going to paint her gravely, one of these days, if she's good.' The air of leisurely patronage and indifference with which this is said, as the speaker throws himself back in a chair and clasps his hands at the back of his head, as a rest for it, is very exasperating to the excitable and excited Neville.

Jasper looks observantly from the one to the other, slightly smiles, and turns his back to mix a jug of mulled wine at the fire.

It seems to require much mixing and compounding.
'I suppose, Mr.Neville,' says Edwin, quick to resent the indignant protest against himself in the face of young Landless, which is fully as visible as the portrait, or the fire, or the lamp: 'I suppose that if you painted the picture of your lady love--' 'I can't paint,' is the hasty interruption.
'That's your misfortune, and not your fault.

You would if you could.
But if you could, I suppose you would make her (no matter what she was in reality), Juno, Minerva, Diana, and Venus, all in one.

Eh ?' 'I have no lady love, and I can't say.' 'If I were to try my hand,' says Edwin, with a boyish boastfulness getting up in him, 'on a portrait of Miss Landless--in earnest, mind you; in earnest--you should see what I could do!' 'My sister's consent to sit for it being first got, I suppose?
As it never will be got, I am afraid I shall never see what you can do.