"Excuse the wanderings of an old dotard, my friend, but when I once get upon this topic, I am inexhaustible; and as for local news, there simply is none. When last I spoke to Helen about writing to you, she desired me to send her duty to you. Pretty soul! duty indeed. Now, my dear boy, I must really draw this epistle to a close. Trusting that you are enjoying the best of health and spirits, and wishing you continued and ever increasing success in your art.
"I remain,
"Your doting but affectionate old friend,
"Obadiah Oldstone."
We have said that Mr. Oldstone was prompt in answering the letters of his protégé. Neither was our artist, as a rule, tardy in answering those of his aged friend. Seldom more than a month passed between a letter and its answer, on either side. Yet to this letter no reply came. Month followed month, and no tidings arrived of our artist. Such delay was most unusual, and Mr. Oldstone now began to be seriously alarmed. What had happened to the boy? Was he ill? He knew by experience that the summer months in Rome were extremely unhealthy, on account of the malaria. Was he laid up with Roman fever? Had he met with an accident? Or was there anything in the tone of his letter that had given offence? He tried to recollect. No, he thought not; in fact, he did not know what to think. The gloomiest fancies rushed across his mind as he paced the breakfast room alone.
Presently his eye caught the portrait of Helen, that McGuilp had presented to the club, and which he, Oldstone, had with his own hands hung up over the mantel. "Ah! my pretty puss," said he, addressing the painted canvas smiling down at him, "I dare not infect you with my fears. I don't want to make you unhappy."
Just then the door gaped ajar, and the original of the portrait appeared at the opening. As the antiquary had not yet noticed her, his eyes being still fixed on the portrait, Helen stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Then, walking straight up to Oldstone, she said, "Please sir, has anything happened?"
"Happened, my dear! What should happen in this dead-and-alive place? Nothing ever happens here."
"Ah! sir," rejoined Helen, "you but evade my question. You know what I would ask."
"My dear, how should I?" demanded her friend and counsellor, with most provoking sang froid.
A gesture of impatience escaped the girl. Then fixing her eyes steadily on those of the antiquary, as if to read his inmost soul, she said with some approach to severity in her tone, "Mr. Oldstone, you are keeping something from me. Something has happened to Mr. McGuilp, and you won't tell me what it is."
"On my honour, my sweet child," replied her friend, "I know no more than you do yourself. I wish I did. Here have I been waiting now about six months for a reply to my letter, when he used often to write by return of post. I can't make head or tail of it."