CHAPTER VI.
The scene was Hatty's atelier, one afternoon at the end of the first week after Mr. George had arrived. The four sat there at tea. It had not been possible to avoid asking the young man to remain. He had come, at Elizabeth's invitation, to look at her study of an old peasant's head; and Hatty, for all her secret aversion for him, could not be so churlish as not to offer him a cup of tea. He took it as a matter of course. He was always delightfully at his ease; and Elizabeth clearly was already more so with him than with the imposing Alaric. He and his sister both felt this to be so.
Elizabeth. "How comes it, Mr. George, if you are a barrister———"
George. "Not a barrister—a solicitor" (with a smile).
Eliza. "Well, a solicitor, then—that you draw so well? You must have studied a great deal."
George. "I studied in the Slade School for some time. I hoped to become an artist, but my family persuaded me to give it up. I had an 'opening,' as it is called, offered me, and so I took to the law. A beastly profession, I dare say you think, Miss Shaw?"
Elisa. "No. Almost the only friend I have in the
