and some good modern pictures—chiefly French; and for these Elizabeth had always shown a fondness. To her father's surprise, he found that she had now acquired a considerable proficiency in drawing. She more than once said to him, "I wish I could be a painter—that is what I should like best." And Anthony smiled—indulgently. He remonstrated when he found her seated on a tub in the yard, sketching one of the stable-boys in his shirtsleeves. He felt somehow or other it was not quite "the thing," though it was difficult to explain to her exactly why. Anthony was a curious man; he was reluctant to remove the bloom from a fresh young mind by conventional ideas of "propriety," but he was not above wincing at the thought of what his neighbours might say. Elizabeth wished to take portraits of all the household, beginning with the aged housekeeper, and ending with the tall footman of five and twenty. She opened her black eyes wide when her father said he must draw the line at the footman. She could not understand why youth should not be immortalized by her pencil as well as age—sex being an accident of no importance. But she yielded with an astonishingly good grace. Time was when she would have rebelled; she only looked at her father now, more in sorrow than in anger. She loved him dearly; she would not vex him for the world; but there were, of course, points upon which sixteen was more enlightened—had wider views—than sixty could be expected to possess.
There were, in fact, in many of their discursive talks together, certain avenues down which Elizabeth would fearlessly plunge, till she found herself pulled up by a dead wall.
