KITTY. CHAPTER I. SHOW DAY IN BOHEMIA. It was the day before sending in pictures to the Royal Academy. Carriage after carriage set down ladies dressed in velvet and silk at the doors of rich and happy artists, who listened to their pretty critics deferentially, though feeling a little bored, and meditating, all the while, a seven days' trip abroad. Outside this charmed circle—that is to say, outside the equatorial line dividing South Kensington from Bohemia, success from struggle, hair powder and truffles from maids-of-allwork and muddle-there was no less excitement going on : real R.A.s looking in for two whole minutes, and criticising in a friendly, lofty way; buyers and dealers paying less hasty visits; and an interchange of courtesies and encouragements among all the artists living in Bohemia. There were three persons in a dingy little studio in No. 3 Paradise Place, Fulham, whose excitement had reached its culminating point, and was now subsiding over a quiet enjoyment of cigars and a bottle of French wine. Nobody says that the ladies were smoking, though that liberty is allowed to all who inhabit the Bohemian Elysium. The elder lady was florid, untidy, and ungrammatical of speech, clothing her thoughts much as she did her body, without any regard whatever to niceties; she didn't see what parts of speech, pins, and laces were good for, she would say; and as little did she care whether decent society liked her to wear her shoes down at heel, and to say Α "you was," or no,-what was decent society to her? As she sat opposite to her picture, a clever masculine subject, of which she could well afford to be proud, she looked the very impersonation of happy artistic vagabondage. You could see, nevertheless, that she loved her picture as a mother loves. her child; that, despite the superficial vulgarity of her manners, she had a soul, and craved colour and light, and beautiful shapes, as other people crave meat and drink and wherewithal to be clothed. The younger lady was a slender, handsome, sulky-looking girl of about twenty-three, not too tidy either, but if slatterliness is pardonable at all, it must be when the culprit has large eyes, a beautiful mouth, and a skin like pearl. She sat opposite to the picture—which was her own portrait-though her eyes were turned away from it, and looked into the deepest depths of her wine-glass. The third of the party was a young man, who sat on the table, his long legs hanging down, his arms crossed in an attitude of delicious idleness, his hair blown ecstatically about his brow. He was blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful, terribly pale, and wanting in bone and muscle, but energetic to the finger-tips, as you could see. Just now his pale cheeks were flushed with pleasure, for his three pictures-in a second studio higher up-had been praised by a member of the hanging committee; and praise in such quarters is like good paper-money, sure to be endorsed further on. "Who first thought of the champagne?" asked the mistress of the house, gaily; "if it's you, Perry, you are a capital fellow." "Kitty says nothing," said Perry, looking at the girl's downcast face with an expression of intense vexation. "Kitty, why are you so glum, when Polly and I are just beginning to grow rich and immortal?" "Oh! never mind about being immortal, but do get rich," said Kitty; "I should like you so much better if you were never dunned for money, and wore unexceptionable waistcoats. One doesn't enjoy champagne half so much when KITTY. CHAPTER I. SHOW DAY IN BOHEMIA. It was the day before sending in pictures to the Royal Academy. Carriage after carriage set down ladies dressed. in velvet and silk at the doors of rich and happy artists, who listened to their pretty critics deferentially, though feeling a little bored, and meditating, all the while, a seven days' trip abroad. Outside this charmed circle-that is to say, outside the equatorial line dividing South Kensington from Bohemia, success from struggle, hair powder and truffles from maids-of-allwork and muddle-there was no less excitement going on: real R.A.s looking in for two whole minutes, and criticising in a friendly, lofty way; buyers and dealers paying less hasty visits; and an interchange of courtesies and encouragements among all the artists living in Bohemia. There were three persons in a dingy little studio in No. 3 Paradise Place, Fulham, whose excitement had reached its culminating point, and was now subsiding over a quiet enjoyment of cigars and a bottle of French wine. Nobody says that the ladies were smoking, though that liberty is allowed to all who inhabit the Bohemian Elysium. The elder lady was florid, untidy, and ungrammatical of speech, clothing her thoughts much as she did her body, without any regard whatever to niceties; she didn't see what parts of speech, pins, and laces were good for, she would say; and as little did she care whether decent society liked her to wear her shoes down at heel, and to say A |