He was afraid, he said, he must complain to Juno of the neglect of Iris, for her irregularity in delivery of a certain ethereal command, which he had not dared to answer otherwise than by mute obedience--unless, indeed, as the import of the letter seemed to infer, the invitation was designed for some more gifted individual than he to whom chance had assigned it.
Lady Penelope by her lips, and many of the young ladies with their eyes, assured him there was no mistake in the matter; that he was really the gifted person whom the nymphs had summoned to their presence, and that they were well acquainted with his talents as a poet and a painter.
Tyrrel disclaimed, with earnestness and gravity, the charge of poetry, and professed, that, far from attempting the art itself, he "read with reluctance all but the productions of the very first-rate poets, and some of these--he was almost afraid to say--he should have liked better in humble prose." "You have now only to disown your skill as an artist," said Lady Penelope, "and we must consider Mr.Tyrrel as the falsest and most deceitful of his sex, who has a mind to deprive us of the opportunity of benefiting by the productions of his unparalleled endowments.

I assure you I shall put my young friends on their guard.

Such dissimulation cannot be without its object." "And I," said Mr.Winterblossom, "can produce a piece of real evidence against the culprit." So saying, he unrolled the sketch which he had filched from Trotting Nelly, and which he had pared and pasted, (arts in which he was eminent,) so as to take out its creases, repair its breaches, and vamp it as well as my old friend Mrs.Weir could have repaired the damages of time on a folio Shakspeare.
"The vara _corpus delicti_," said the writer, grinning and rubbing his hands.
"If you are so good as to call such scratches drawings," said Tyrrel, "I must stand so far confessed.

I used to do them for my own amusement; but since my landlady, Mrs.Dods, has of late discovered that I gain my livelihood by them, why should I disown it ?" This avowal, made without the least appearance either of shame or _retenue_, seemed to have a striking effect on the whole society.

The president's trembling hand stole the sketch back to the portfolio, afraid doubtless it might be claimed in form, or else compensation expected by the artist.