"Poor Garrick!" exclaimed Reynolds ruefully; "it is scarcely yet a year since we left him alone in his glory beneath the pavement of Westminster."
The mobile countenance of the child actress reflected as a mirror the sad memory evoked by the artist; a tear glistened upon the lashes of her beautiful eyes.
"He was your friend?" she inquired.
"Oh, yes; one of whom I was very proud."
"Did you paint his portrait?"
"Many times. He posed marvellously, and never tormented me as he did one of my fellow-artists to whom quite unwillingly he had accorded some sittings."
"What did he do?"
"Changed his mask every five minutes, until the poor artist, believing that he as often had a new model before him, or the devil, perhaps, flung away his brushes in despair."
"Garrick once told me," said Esther Woodville, "that the son of a friend, recently dead, had sought him to complain of some trickery by which he had been deprived of a portion of his inheritance. A certain old man, to whom the deceased had intrusted a considerable sum, denied the trust and refused to make restitution. Do you know what Garrick did? Arrayed in the attire of the dead, he played the ghost, and played it so well that the wretch, terrified beyond measure, made confession and restored the property."
"I never heard the anecdote; it is curious," said Reynolds, taking a pinch of snuff.