Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 1.djvu/245

Rh intended?" Johnny took up a scrap of paper, and having scrutinized it for a minute or two declared that he had not the slightest idea who was represented. "You know the subject,—the story that is intended to be told?" said Dalrymple.

"Upon my word I don't. There's some old fellow seems to be catching it over the head; but it's all so confused I can't make much of it. The woman seems to be uncommon angry."

"Do you ever read your Bible?"

"Ah, dear! not as often as I ought to do. Ah, I see; it's Sisera. I never could quite believe that story. Jael might have killed Captain Sisera in his sleep,—for which, by-the-by, she ought to have been hung, and she might possibly have done it with a hammer and a nail. But she could not have driven it through, and staked him to the ground."

"I've warrant enough for putting it into a picture, at any rate. My Jael there is intended for Miss Van Siever."

"Miss Van Siever! Well, it is like her. Has she sat for it?"

"O dear, no; not yet. I mean to get her to do so. There's a strength about her, which would make her sit the part admirably. And I fancy she would like to be driving a nail into a fellow's head. I think I shall take Musselboro for a Sisera."

"You're not in earnest?"

"He would just do for it. But of course I shan't ask him to sit, as my Jael would not like it. She would not consent to operate on so base a subject. So you really are going down to Guestwick?"

"Yes; I start to-morrow. Good-by, old fellow. I'll come and sit for Sisera if you'll let me;—only Miss Van Jael shall have a blunted nail, if you please."

Then Johnny left the artist's room and walked across from Kensington to Lady Demolines' house. As he went he partly accused himself, and partly excused himself in that matter of his love for Lily Dale. There were moments of his life in which he felt that he would willingly die for her,—that life was not worth having without her,—in which he went about inwardly reproaching fortune for having treated him so cruelly. Why should she not be his? He half believed that she loved him. She had almost told him so. She could not surely still love that other man who had treated her with such vile falsehood? As he considered the question in all its bearings he assured himself over and over again that there would be now no fear of that rival;—and yet he had such fears, and hated Crosbie almost as much as ever. It was a thousand pities, certainly, that the man should have been made free