At Sir George's suggestion the painter was first invited to dinner, that he might see the child. She appeared at dessert, and was placed beside the stranger at the table. It did not take long for the two to become acquainted, for the painter immediately began to amuse the little girl with stories and all sorts of tricks. Calling her attention to some object on the other side of the room, he would steal her plate while she was looking away, and pretend to be greatly surprised at its disappearance. They would then try to find it, but in vain, until, when she was again off her guard, he would slip it into place, and there would be a great sensation over its discovery. Was there ever a jollier man for a little girl to dine with!
The next day it was proposed that Miss Bowles should be taken to visit her new friend, and she was of course delighted to go. When the party reached the studio, the child's face was shining with expectancy as she greeted the painter. It was this expression which Reynolds has caught so perfectly on his canvas, and which makes the little girl's face seem actually smiling into ours.
He was equally successful in catching a natural pose, watching her closely as she danced about the room. It was a theory of his that the unconscious movements of a child are always graceful, and we may be sure that Miss Bowles's position here is one of her own invention. Her skirt is spread out a little at one side, balancing, as it were, the figure of the dog opposite. The lines inclosing the entire group form a pyramid.
The original painting is still beautiful in color, being among the best preserved of Reynolds's works. Critics have pronounced it a "matchless work that would have immortalized Reynolds had he never painted anything else."
V
MASTER BUNBURY
By a pleasant coincidence the year 1768 brought to Reynolds's studio for portrait sittings two young people who began an acquaintance at this time which had a romantic ending. They were Miss Catherine Horneck and Henry William Bunbury, who were married a few years later, and were the parents of the little boy in our picture.
Miss Horneck was one of two pretty sisters who, upon their father's death, had become wards of Sir Joshua, the family being old Devonshire acquaintances of his. They were now living in London with their mother, and were great pets in society. Goldsmith, who knew them well, playfully named Miss Catherine "Little Comedy" from the resemblance between her face and that of the allegorical figure of Comedy in one of Reynolds's portraits of Garrick.