Chapter Seven.
Lady R— sat down before her writing materials, and I took my seat on the sofa, as she had requested, and was soon occupied with my reading. I perceived that, as she wrote, her ladyship continually took her eyes off her paper, and fixed them upon me. I presumed that she was describing me, and I was correct in my idea, for, in about half-an-hour, she threw down her pen, and cried:
“There, I am indebted to you for the best picture of a heroine that I ever drew! Listen.”
And her ladyship read to me a most flattering description of my sweet person, couched in very high-flown language.
“I think, Lady R—,” said I, when she had finished, “that you are more indebted to your own imagination than to reality in drawing my portrait.”
“Not so, not so, my dear Valerie. I may have done you justice, but certainly not more. There is nothing like having the living subject to write from. It is the same as painting or drawing, it only can be true when drawn from nature; in fact, what is writing but painting with the pen?”
As she concluded her sentence, the page, Lionel, came in with a letter on a waiter, and hearing her observation, as he handed the letter, he impudently observed:
“Here’s somebody been painting your name on the outside of this paper; and as there’s 7 pence to pay, I think it’s rather dear for such a smudge.”
“You must not judge from outside appearance, Lionel,” replied Lady R—: “the contents may be worth pounds. It is not prepossessing, I grant, in its superscription, but may, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wear a precious jewel in its head. That was a vulgar error of former days, Lionel, which Shakespeare has taken advantage of.”
“Yes, that chap painted with a pen at a fine rate,” replied the boy, as Lady R— opened the letter and read it.