Sometimes they say, "Oh, how very serious you have made me look, Miss La Creevy!" and at others, "La, Miss La Creevy, how very smirking!" when the very essence of a good portrait is, that it must be either serious or smirking, 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 Academy! All those beautiful shiny portraits of gentlemen 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 same rule in art, only varying the objects--are smirking.

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 we always use the serious for professional people (except actors sometimes), and the smirk for private ladies and gentlemen who don't care so much about looking clever.' Kate seemed highly amused by this information, and Miss La Creevy went on painting and talking, with immovable complacency.
'What a number of officers you seem to paint!' said Kate, availing herself of a pause in the discourse, and glancing round the room.
'Number of what, child ?' inquired Miss La Creevy, looking 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 uniform coat to be painted in, and send it here in a carpet bag.
Some artists,' said Miss La Creevy, 'keep a red coat, and charge seven-and-sixpence extra for hire and carmine; but I don't do that myself, for I don't consider it legitimate.' Drawing herself up, as though she plumed herself greatly upon not resorting to these lures to catch sitters, Miss La Creevy applied herself, more intently, to her task: only raising her head occasionally, to look with unspeakable satisfaction at some touch she had just put in: and now and then giving Miss Nickleby to understand what particular feature she was at work upon, at the moment; 'not,' she expressly observed, 'that you should make it up for painting, 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 minute and a half, 'when do you expect to see your uncle again ?' '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.