“What is the matter now?” asked bright-faced Madge, who had strolled into her sister’s studio from the garden, her hands full of snowdrops and aconites from the shrubbery borders.
“Why, little Muriel Ellerton has just sickened with measles, and you know I was depending upon her as a model for my Academy picture. It is so difficult to get a really picturesque-looking child; and Muriel would have done beautifully. I really haven’t any time to lose; and here I am at a perfect deadlock!”
“What a pity!” said Madge, who took great interest in her talented sister’s drawing. Cora Clayton had achieved a rather considerable success for an amateur, and for two years past had exhibited a small picture in the Royal Academy. During the winter months just past she had been away from home with her brother’s delicate wife, who had been ordered to the south of France, so that she had not been able to do much painting. Now that she was home again she was eager to get forward, and it was provoking to be disappointed of her model just upon the very morning when she had reckoned to start work.
“Is there no other child who would do?” asked a voice from the couch beside the fire. Young Mrs. Clayton, the barrister’s delicate wife, had established herself in Cora’s studio, as she was fond of doing. The sisters were greatly attached to their brother’s wife, and the family lived happily together in perfect harmony in their old-fashioned semi-country house at Hampstead.
“I can’t think of one that just suits my ideas,” answered Cora. “Muriel would just have done, with her cloud of fair curls and blue eyes with a sort of pathetic wistfulness behind their brightness. It was just the face for my subject. It is provoking! You know I am not like some artists; I know what I want to paint, but imagination doesn’t do everything for me. I must have the model, and the right model, and I’m sure I don’t know where to turn to next!”
“I wonder if little Allumette would do!” suddenly exclaimed Madge. “She had the sweetest little face, and just such eyes and hair as Muriel; only I think she is prettier.”
“Allumette! What do you mean? I never heard such a name!”
“Oh, that is Bertram’s nickname. She is a little match-seller in the City. I saw her the other day when I was in town with him. Evidently she is often on his beat, for he had given her that cognomen, and one could see that she quite adored him. I daresay he has been kind to her often.”
Cora and Eva were both interested, and when Madge had described the child, Cora declared she really had a good mind to go and have a look at her.
“It would really be easier in some ways than Muriel,” she said, “for if I paid her I suppose her relations would be glad enough to let me have her over here; and they would keep her for me at the gardener’s cottage for a week or two, so that I could have her backwards and forwards as I wanted, instead of being fettered by lesson hours and other things as I should be with Muriel. One does see very pretty children often in the streets; only, as a rule, it would not be practicable to get hold of them.”