'Poor fellow!' she thought, as the hitherto restrained tears flowed under her veil, 'I have used him ill—and yet how soft and gentle he is with me!'
CHAPTER VI.
JACK SHOWS HIS TEETH.
Fortune seemed to be looking kindly on Mary and Ellinor now, when the former, through an advertisement, got a couple of pupils, little girls, in the neighbourhood of Portman Square, and the latter had actually sold her landscape, and started another.
'The Linn on the May' had caught the eye of Sir Redmond Sleath when passing the shop window, not that he particularly cared about pictures or art of any kind, save the culinary one, but he thought he recognised the subject—even the style and the landscape—and on looking more closely, after adjusting his inevitable eyeglass, an exclamation of surprise or satisfaction, perhaps both, escaped him on discovering the initials 'E.W.' in one of the lower corners, and he entered the shop at once to inspect the landscape more closely.
'I think I know the artist,' said he to the bowing dealer, who was not much accustomed to visitors of Sleath's style and bearing. 'A young lady, is she not?'
'Yes, sir—yes—Miss Ellinor Wellwood.'
'I thought so. I'll take her work.'
'Thank you, sir. Shall I send it to your address, your club, or where, sir?'
'Neither. I'll take it with me.'