In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

by Amelia B. Edwards

"What part?"

"The part of sitter."

"Oh, with pleasure," I replied, laughing. "Do with me what you please,"

"You don't mind? Come! you are the best fellow in the world. Now, if you'll sit in that arm-chair facing the light--head a little thrown back, arms folded, chin up ... Capital! You don't know what an effect this will have upon the provincial mind!"

"But you're not going to let them in! You have no portrait of me to be at work upon!"

"My dear fellow, I've dozens of half-finished studies, any one of which will answer the purpose. Voilà! here is the very thing."

And snatching up a canvas that had been standing till now with its face to the wall, he flourished it triumphantly before my eyes, and placed it on the easel.

"Heavens and earth!" I exclaimed, "that's a copy of the Titian in the Louvre--the 'Young Man with the Glove!'"

"What of that? Our Tapottes will never find out the difference. By the way, I told them you were a great English Milord, so please keep up the character."

"I will try to do credit to the peerage."