The author of course gave me a lead, but there was a margin for interpretation.

I took the Monarchs into my confidence, I told them frankly what I was about, I mentioned my embarrassments and alternatives.

"Oh take HIM!" Mrs.
Monarch murmured sweetly, looking at her husband; and "What could you want better than my wife ?" the Major inquired with the comfortable candour that now prevailed between us.
I wasn't obliged to answer these remarks--I was only obliged to place my sitters.

I wasn't easy in mind, and I postponed a little timidly perhaps the solving of my question.

The book was a large canvas, the other figures were numerous, and I worked off at first some of the episodes in which the hero and the heroine were not concerned.