The Studio IT was about the close of the month, that, yielding at length to the urgent importunities of Rose, I accompanied her in a visit to Wildfell Hall. To our surprise, we were ushered into a room where the first object that met the eye was a painter's easel, with a table beside it covered with rolls of canvas, bottles of oil and varnish, palette, brushes, paints, etc. Leaning against the wall were several sketches in various stages of progression, and a few finished paintings mostly of landscapes and figures.
`I must make you welcome to my studio,' said Mrs Graham; `there is no fire in the sitting-room to-day, and it is rather too cold to show you into a place with an empty grate.'
And disengaging a couple of chairs from the artistical lumber that usurped them, she bid us be seated, and resumed her place beside the easel--not facing it exactly, but now and then glancing at the picture upon it while she conversed, and giving it an occasional touch with her brush, as if she found it impossible to wean her attention entirely from her occupation to fix it upon her guests. It was a view of Wildfell Hall, as seen at early morning from the field below, rising in dark relief against a sky of clear silvery blue, with a few red streaks on the horizon, faithfully drawn and coloured, and very elegantly and artistically handled.
`I see your heart is in your work, Mrs Graham,' observed I: `I must beg you to go on with it; for if you suffer our presence to interrupt you, we shall be constrained to regard ourselves as unwelcome intruders.'
`Oh, no!'. replied she, throwing her brush on to the table, as if startled into politeness. `I am not so beset with visitors, but that I can readily spare a few minutes to the few that do favour me with their company.
`You have almost completed your painting,' said I, approaching to observe it more closely, and surveying it with a greater degree of admiration and delight than I cared to express. `A few more touches in the foreground will finish it I should think.--But why have you called it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell Hall,--shire?' I asked, alluding to the name she had traced in small characters at the bottom of the canvas.
But immediately I was sensible of having committed an act of impertinence in so doing; for she coloured and hesitated; but after a moment's pause, with a kind of desperate frankness, she replied,--`Because I have friends--acquaintances at least--in the world, from whom I desire my present abode to be concealed; and as they might see the picture, and might possibly recognize the style in spite of the false initials I have put in the corner, I take the precaution to give a false name to the place also, in order to put them on a wrong scent, if they should attempt to trace me out by it.'
`Then you don't intend to keep the picture?' said I, anxious to say anything to change the subject.
`No; I cannot afford to paint for my own amusement.'
`Mamma sends all her pictures to London,' said Arthur; `and somebody sells them for her there, and sends us the money.'
In looking round upon the other pieces, I remarked a pretty sketch of Lindenhope from the top of the hill; another view of the old hall, basking in the sunny haze of a quiet summer afternoon; and a simple but striking little picture of a child brooding with looks of silent, but deep and sorrow over handful o~ withered Bowers, with glimpses of dark low hills and autumnal fields behind it, and a dull beclouded sky above.
`You see there is a sad dearth of subjects,' observed the fair artist. `I took the old hall once on a moonlight night, and I suppose I must take it again on a snowy winter's day, and then again on a dark cloudy evening; for I really have nothing else to paint. I have been told that you have a fine view of the sea somewhere in the neighbourhood--Is it true?--and is it within walking distance?'
`Yes, if you don't object to walking four miles,--or nearly so--little short of eight miles there and back--and over a somewhat rough, fatiguing road.'
`In what direction does it lie?'
