They knew that for this undertaking I should want no costume--effects, none of the frippery of past ages--that it was a case in which everything would be contemporary and satirical and presumably genteel.

If I could work them into it their future would be assured, for the labour would of course be long and the occupation steady.
One day Mrs.Monarch came without her husband--she explained his absence by his having had to go to the City.

While she sat there in her usual relaxed majesty there came at the door a knock which I immediately recognised as the subdued appeal of a model out of work.

It was followed by the entrance of a young man whom I at once saw to be a foreigner and who proved in fact an Italian acquainted with no English word but my name, which he uttered in a way that made it seem to include all others.
I hadn't then visited his country, nor was I proficient in his tongue; but as he was not so meanly constituted--what Italian is ?--as to depend only on that member for expression he conveyed to me, in familiar but graceful mimicry, that he was in search of exactly the employment in which the lady before me was engaged.

I was not struck with him at first, and while I continued to draw I dropped few signs of interest or encouragement.