They had threshed the matter out in a dismal conference--they had digested the bad news that they were not in for the series.

If they weren't useful to me even for the CHEAPSIDE their function seemed difficult to determine, and I could only judge at first that they had come, forgivingly, decorously, to take a last leave.

This made me rejoice in secret that I had little leisure for a scene; for I had placed both my other models in position together and I was pegging away at a drawing from which I hoped to derive glory.

It had been suggested by the passage in which Rutland Ramsay, drawing up a chair to Artemisia's piano-stool, says extraordinary things to her while she ostensibly fingers out a difficult piece of music.

I had done Miss Churm at the piano before--it was an attitude in which she knew how to take on an absolutely poetic grace.