"'All right, Sidney, whenever you like.'
"'Next Tuesday, eh?'
"'All right, my boy—next Tuesday.'
"After dinner we were chatting, and I said: 'Well, I've got my sketch-book with me, and in return for the box I'll draw your wife's portrait and the baby. It won't take a quarter of an hour.' So they sat. I drew a sheep and a lamb suckling."
THE FLOCK MASTER'S HOPE.
From the Painting by T.S. Cooper, R.A.
Mr. Cooper's first work of importance was founded on his first love. The Cathedral and its precincts was one of the dearest spots on earth to him, and he did some excellent drawings on stone of the Cathedral and Canterbury in general. The gateway of St. Augustine's Monastery and High Street, Canterbury, showing the coach waiting outside the "George and Dragon," are good examples of these—particularly the latter, as it tends to show something of what the Cathedral city was like when Mr. Cooper was unconsciously stepping to fame with the aid of a school slate and pencil. At last he got to London and gained a studentship at the Royal Academy, then held at Somerset House. It filled his heart with hope—he realized all his longings; but his uncle, who had promised to support him while working away at the Academy, suddenly threw him over, and young Cooper was forced to go back to Canterbury, and was obliged to paint coaches once more and give lessons in drawing. It was an important step when he, together with his friend William Burgess, decided to try the Continent. The young artist was now twenty-four years of age. He positively painted his way from Calais to Brussels by doing likenesses of the proprietors of small hostelries, together with their families, in return for his board and lodging.
A BROOK IN THE MEADOWS.