gels" at the National. In this work there was something to be learnt. The softness, the delicacy, the angelic expression of those little cherubs' heads, all painted from one tiny mortal face, showed the student of art what it is in the hands of a master. And Reynolds is a master for a very unartistic nation to be proud of. Frank had finished this picture when Kate's "Blind Beggar" was half done. The copy he made was very good. At the Gallery the old women praised it; and as they had often copied it themselves, they were judges. A dealer who came in one students' day called it "clever." He was a burly man, with a tremendously red nose that told its own tale of knock-outs. This professional opinion encouraged Frank. He had hoped to sell it to some of those connoisseurs of art who loiter round the students' easels on closed days; but there had been no bid.

He had it framed: it happened to be at the shop of the red-nosed man, whose name was Burls. He paid two pounds ten shillings for an appropriate Reynolds frame for it.

Then he put his picture into a cab, and tried the dealers all over the West-end with it. "What! buy a copy of a picture in the National Gallery? Not unless we knew where we could place it!"

It was a knock-down blow for our innocent artist-hero; but it was the answer he got everywhere, from rough dealers and smooth, Hebrew and Gentile. So at last, in despair, he left it at an auction room in Bond-street, where, a fortnight afterwards, Kate and he attended, and bought it in at two pounds seven and sixpence half a crown less than the frame that was on it had cost him; and he had five per cent. commission to pay, and the cost of taking it home. This opened his eyes to the trade value of copies of pictures that are known.

A young lady at the Museum made friends with Kate-they all make friends with one another-and exhorted her to try at working on wood. So with Frank and her mother for models, and a background out of her sketch book, she made a pretty picture, and despatched Frank to lay siege to the editors.

He took a few water-colour sketches of his own with him, to show at one or two picture shops where he had seen similar sketches displayed in the window.

He tried two shops-one was near Piccadilly-in his walk towards the publishers' offices. He was not afraid of talking to the

shopkeepers, but he did feel a little nervous at the prospect of bearding an editor in his den.

So he showed his sketches, with some success. The answer at both the shops was—. "Do me some with shorter petticuts, and I'll give you forty-two shillings a dozen for them."

The shops were kept by brothers, and Frank's sketches were pretty young ladies. He profited by this experience.

He spent that afternoon, and the next, and the next after that in calling at different places with the inquiry, "Is the editor of the So-and-so in?"

With one result.

The editor never was

in-to a young man who did not know his illustrious name. At night, after the third of these excursions, he felt embittered towards these gentlemen, and told Kate he thought they might as well put their block in the fire, it would warm them, so.

The weather was as warm as Frank's temper. Kate reproved him, and gave him her royal commands to try again.

"And now, Frank," she said after their mother had gone to bed, "I have made up my mind to go away from London, and take mamma with me-to Wales, I think. Living is cheap there, and the scenery is beautiful. She must be taken out of London."

Frank felt rather glad at this. He thought his mother and sister would be better in the country for a few months. When they came back to him, he meant to have a home for them.

"And I'll tell you why, Frank. I shall finish my picture; but it is not easy to do that. There are four people at it now—such a vulgar man; and oh! two such vulgar women-and they race on a Wednesday morning to get up the stairs before me, and secure their seats for the week close to the picture. The man elbows roughly by me, and I can hardly get a look at the picture myself."

Frank began to fume-his fingers tingled. "The authorities should make some proper rules, I think, for I began my copy before any of them. Of course, I can't race up the stairs with them, and tear through the rooms to be first at the picture; and, then, Frank-you'll promise me to do as I tell you?"

"I don't know, Kate. I think I shall be at the top of the stairs before that fellow some day soon-"

lodging in Islington, and went on with his painting. He still meant to be famous. One fine morning he had no money left except a five pound note he had resolved never to break into. This brought him down from the clouds. He had not been successful in getting any work for the magazines, so he determined, at whatever sacrifice, to turn his angels' heads into money.

He took it first to Mr. Burls's shop, and told the picture dealer he had tried hard to sell it before, but had been unable to dispose of it.

"It isn't in our way, sir."

"Is it in anybody's way?" asked Frank. "I should think not. Copies aren't no good at all."

"Would you give me anything for it?" asked the young man.

I've

"Well, you may leave it if you like. got a customer I don't mind showing it to." Frank called again a few days after. "I'll give you six pounds for it, and then I dare say I shall lose by it," said Mr. Burls.

He had sold it for eighteen guineas to a customer who collected Sir Joshuas, and bought copies when the originals were not. likely to come into the market. But Frank did not know this. He accepted the six pounds eagerly.

"I'm a ready-money man, my lad-there's your coin."

"Thank you," said Frank, pocketing six sovereigns. "You have a great many pictures, Mr. Burls."

And he might have added, "very great rubbish they are."

"There's seventeen hundred pictures in this house, from cellar to garrets, lad," said the dealer.

They stood in stacks, eight or ten thick, round the cellar, down the open trap of which Frank could see. They were piled everywhere. One canvas, thirteen feet by eight, was screwed up to the ceiling. They were numberless pictures of every age and school, Titians and Tenierses, Snyderses and Watteaus: all the kings of England, from the Conqueror down to William IV.; ancestors ready for hanging in the pseudo-baronial halls of the nouveaux riches;-in a word, furniture pictures by the gross.

"If there was seventeen hundred before, yours makes the seventeen hundred and oneth, don't it?”

The dealer was pleased to joke.

His

shopman laughed, and Frank did too. He had put his pride in his pocket, for Mr. Burls amused him.

"Now, this here Sir Joshua ought to be wet; and not to ask you to stand, suppose we torse."

Frank assented, lost, and paid for three glasses.

"Where's Critchett ?-I haven't seen him to-day?" Mr. Burls asked of his man.

"He has not turned up. The old complaint, I expect."

"Well, you can tell him from me, when he does turn up, he's got to the end of his tether," said Mr. Burls, very angrily. "Be dashed if I employ such a vagabond any longer. There's this picture of Mr. Thingamy's for him to restore, and I promised it this week faithfully."

"He's often served you so before," said the man.

But this remark did not soothe the dealer. It made him only the more angry.

Now, Mr. Frank Melliship had got to the end of his tether, too, for he had only the six pounds he had just received, and no immediate prospect of being able to earn more. Opportunity comes once in a way to every

man.

It had come to Frank, and he determined to make the most of it.

"Could I restore the picture for you, sir?" It was a great ugly daub-a copy, a hundred years old probably, of some picture in a Dutch gallery-and stood on the floor by Frank. Doubtless, it had a value in the eyes of its owner, who thought it worthy of restoration; but a viler, blacker tatterdemalion of a canvas you never saw.

At Frank's question, Mr. Burls opened his eyes very wide.

"Show us your hands," he said. "That's what they say to beggars as say they're innocent at the station. Ah, I thought soyou aint done any hard work. Now, perhaps you're what I call a gingerbread gentleman. Are you?"

The colour mounted to Frank's cheeks. "I want employment, sir. I'm a poor man."

"He aint no use to us-is he, Jack?" Jack, Mr. Burls's man, shook his head. "I could repaint that picture where it wants it," said Frank.

"Did you ever restore a picture before? Restoring's an art: it's a thing as isn't learnt in a moment, I can tell you. 'Pictures cleaned, lined, and restored by a method of

our own invention, without injury, and at a moderate charge,"" said Mr. Burls, quoting an inscription in gilt letters over Frank's head. "Now, did you ever clean a picture?" "No," said Frank.

"Do you think you could do the painting part if I taught you how to clean and restore on the system I invented myself?"

"I think I could," said Frank.

"But if I teach you the secrets of the trade, what are you going to give me?"

"I'm afraid I can't afford to give you anything," said Frank, "except labour."

"It's worth fifty pounds to anybody to know. Critchett might have made a fortune at it. Look at me. I began as an errand boy. I'm not ashamed of it. A good restorer can always keep himself employed."

"Indeed, sir," said Frank-who contemplated with admiration a man who had been the founder of his own fortune-"I should very much like to learn the art of restoring, as I have not been successful in getting a living as an artist."

"Well," said the dealer, "I'll see first what you're up to, and whether you can paint well enough for me if I was to teach you the restoring. You may come upstairs. Bring that picture up on your shoulder."

Frank hoisted the canvas aloft, and followed Mr. Burls up the stairs.

OUR SEXTON.

By E. G. CHARLESWORTH.

LD Jonathan, as wafer thin,

OLD

Yet waterproof as paletôt,
Had dug the graves of sire and son,
These twenty years and more, I know.

His jaws, the size of ass's bone

That slew the thousand Philistine, Worked in his skin as archer's bow

Full strung, with arrow in its line.
And loud he talked, above the noise

Of spade and axe, with spirit brave,
And tossed the juicy clay on bank,
And deepened fast the narrow grave.
And every bone he threw aside,

He named the owner of the wreck-
Or tooth, or hair, he knew their mark,
As banker his upon a cheque.
How well he loved those steeple bells
He rang on Sunday through the year,

The good old vicar, burial fees,

His pickaxe, shovel, all were dear.

For all were living things to him;

With mind, and heart, and strength, and soul, He gave them words when they had none, At marriage times, or funeral knoll.

Good wishes, pedigrees, last hours,

Their courtship, prospects-all, in short;
Some lost, some saved--but most were saved:
He answered for them as they ought.

The kernel of all creeds to him
Was "God is Love," no less, no more;
The gray old man disliked to damn,
However small the fees in store.

Text, sermon, vicar's kindly face,

Old chalice cup, baptismal dove,
Churching of women, marriage banns,
Meant, more or less, that God was Love.
His ancient soul shone through his eyes
As slumb'ring fire within the bar,
Or flickered as a taper light

To window draught or door ajar.
Sometimes in fuller moon it rose,

And drew a spring-tide through each vein, When ale or porter struck the nerves

That rise from stomach to the brain. And then what stories filled the air

With ghosts, and owls, and funeral sign, Death dances, warnings, black pit shades, That made the lingering bumpkins whine, And dread the murmurs of the wind;

And loosened shutters' rusty chime Were half a message from the fiend,

To call a soul before its time.

And sprang the wish that they were safe
'Tween sheet and blanket in their bed
(Their angered spouses sunk in peace),
And barricaded from the dead;

And moved them, arm and voice, to ask
And stand the cost of extra glass,
To see them through the steeping yard,
And swollen gutter safely pass.

His long-known master how he loved-
A few grades less than fees to earn-
Who went along the village lane

With eyes to earth, as mourners turn
Their last light on the new-born grave,

Yet heart large-sized to hold full dear:
The sick, the aged, the young and strong
He called "his children " all the year.
One thorn he had that pierced his flesh-.
The navvies and their sinful lives,
Who worried cats with terriers vile,

And fought their brothers and their wives;
And cut their railway through his glebe,
And drank and swore till midnight hours,
And never came to church at all,

But poached the game and cursed the powers.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.

HE subject of our cartoon this week, THE

Mr. George Augustus Sala, was born in London about the year 1826. He is the son of a Portuguese gentleman, who married an English lady. Having adopted literature as his profession, Mr. Sala became a writer