They shook hands, and she sent her excuses to Lady Lucy for having been too much occupied to call, asking whether she was still in town.
‘Only till Thursday,’ he said, ‘when I take her to join my aunt, who is to show her the Rhine.’
‘Do not you go with them?’
‘I have not decided. It depends upon circumstances. Did not I hear something of your family visiting Germany?’
‘Perhaps they may,’ said Theodora, dryly. He began to study the portrait, and saw some likeness, but was distressed by something in the drawing of the mouth.
‘Yes,’ said Theodora, ‘I know it is wrong; but Miss Piper could not see it as I did, and her alterations only made it worse, till I longed to be able to draw.’
‘I wonder if I might venture,’ said Lord St. Erme, screwing up his eye, and walking round the picture. ‘I am sure, with your artist eye, you must know what it is not to be able to keep your hands off.’
‘Not I,’ said Theodora, smiling. ‘Pencils are useless tools to me. But it would be a great benefit to the picture, and Miss Piper will fancy it all her own.’
‘You trust me, then?’ and he turned to ask for a piece of chalk, adding, ‘But is it not too bold a measure without the subject?’
‘He is in the carriage, with his nurse;’ and Theodora, unable to resist so material an improvement to her gift, brought him in, and set him up on the counter opposite to a flaming picture of a gentleman in a red coat, which he was pleased to call papa, and which caused his face to assume a look that was conveyed to the portrait by Lord St. Erme, and rendered it the individual Johnnie Martindale, instead of merely a pale boy in a red sash.