"
"Poor thing! Well, indeed, sir, you looked--you looked--what a shame! and
you a poet."
"From an epitaph to an epic, madam."
At this moment a figure looked in upon them from the garden, but
retreated unobserved. It was Sir Charles Pomander, who had slipped away,
with the heartless and malicious intention of exposing the husband to the
wife, and profiting by her indignation and despair. Seeing Triplet, he
made an extemporaneous calculation that so infernal a chatterbox could
not be ten minutes in her company without telling her everything, and
this would serve his turn very well. He therefore postponed his purpose,
and strolled away to a short distance.
Triplet justified the baronet's opinion. Without any sort of sequency he
now informed Mrs. Vane that the benevolent lady was to sit to him for her
portrait.
Here was a new attention of Ernest's. How good he was, and how wicked and
ungrateful she!
"What! are you a painter too?" she inquired.
"From a house front to an historical composition, madam."
"Oh, what a clever man! And so Ernest commissioned you to paint a
portrait?"
"No, madam; for that I am indebted to the lady herself."
"The lady herself?"
"Yes, madam; and I expected to find her here. Will you add to your
kindness by informing me whether she has arrived? Or she is gone--"
"Who, sir? (Oh, dear! not my portrait! Oh, Ernest!)"
"Who, madam!" cried Triplet; "why, Mrs.
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