May boast a paragon all specks without,
Using the painter's privilege to choose
Among what 's rarest. Will your wife refuse
Acceptance from—no rival—of a gift?
You paint the human figure I make shift
Humbly to reproduce: but, in my hours
Of idlesse, what I fain would paint is—flowers.
Look now!"
She twitched aside a veiling cloth.
"Here is my keepsake—frame and picture both: