"
"O Heaven!" said poor Trip, excited by this picture. "I'll go home, and
write a comedy this moment."
"Stay!" said she; "you had better leave the tragedies with me."
"My dear madam! You will read them?"
"Ahem! I will make poor Rich read them."
"But, madam, he has rejected them."
"That is the first step. Reading them comes after, when it comes at all.
What have you got in that green baize?"
"In this green baize?"
"Well, in this green baize, then."
"Oh madam! nothing--nothing! To tell the truth, it is an adventurous
attempt from memory. I saw you play Silvia, madam; I was so charmed, that
I came every night. I took your face home with me--forgive my
presumption, madam--and I produced this faint adumbration, which I expose
with diffidence."
So then he took the green baize off.
The color rushed into her face; she was evidently gratified. Poor, silly
Mrs. Triplet was doomed to be right about this portrait.
"I will give you a sitting," said she. "You will find painting dull faces
a better trade than writing dull tragedies. Work for other people's
vanity, not your own; that is the art of art. And now I want Mr.
Triplet's address."
"On the fly-leaf of each work, madam," replied that florid author, "and
also at the foot of every page which contains a particularly brilliant
passage, I have been careful to insert the address of James Triplet,
painter, actor, and dramatist, and Mrs.
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