"Within a few days: perhaps a few hours."
Perhaps a few hours! Such an answer implied that it was within the range of probability for the completion of his picture to take place on Christmas Day—that is, on the very anniversary of the day on which he had finished his last masterpiece. This coincidence of dates was certainly remarkable, and my uncle could not help reverting to it.
"Christmas is a favorite time with you," he remarked. "Your last great work, if I remember rightly, received its final touch on Christmas Day."
"Yes," replied the artist, "because both pictures represent death scenes; and the brilliant sunshine and blue skies of summer-time are too joyous to allow me to think of anything sad. I am like that poet who could never write good verse unless he was in an elegant and tastefully-appointed study. Similarly, I find the gloom and darkness of your English Christmas a more appropriate time than any other to portray my conceptions of death."
"Egad! there's something in that," said the doctor with a nod of approval. He seemed to have taken a great fancy for Angelo. "The weather has a wonderful effect on the mental faculties."
"The want of a suitable model has delayed your work, I think you said," said the Baronet to Angelo. "Did you procure in London what you wanted?"
"Yes; I have—found a—a—" he seemed to hesitate as to the choice of a word—"a lovely figure. The very ideal of what an artist's model should be."
"What is the subject of your picture?" inquired Florrie.
"I am going to call it 'Modesta, the Christian Martyr.' It represents a scene in the Coliseum. A Christian maiden is breathing her last on the sands of the arena. A Libyan lion stands proudly over her, with one claw fixed in her breast."