Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/348

336 and winter, through youth and age, and life and death! if age and death must come."

He spoke this in such serious earnest that my heart bounded with delight; but the minute after he changed his tone, and asked, with a significant smile, if I had "any more portraits."

"No," replied I, reddening with confusion and wrath. But my portfolio was on the table; he took it up, and coolly sat down to examine its contents.

"Mr. Huntingdon, those are my unfinished sketches," cried I, "and I never let any one see them."

And I placed my hand on the portfolio to wrest it from him; but he maintained his hold, assuring me that he "liked unfinished sketches of all things."

"But I hate them to be seen," returned I. "I can't let you have it, indeed!"

"Let me have its bowels then," said he; and just as I wrenched the portfolio from his hand, he deftly abstracted the greater part of