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seated with her baby son in her arms. Their youngest daughter sat cross-legged at her feet, in a foaming muslin dress with a pink sash, and her older sister, similarly attired, sat on a nearby swing.
    It was a charming composition, very much in the modern taste, showing a paterfamilias enjoying the pleasures of family life, and the dutiful and fecund wife serene and contented, under his care.
    “You have another daughter,” Henry Lisser said abruptly. “Is she not to be in the painting?”
    She was not, Mr. Partington said snappishly, since she was a Darcy, a mere stepdaughter, not a Partington. However, Mr. Partington would be very much obliged if Mr. Lisser would include one or two of his prized Shorthorn cattle in the picture.

Chapter Four
    Cassandra was exasperated. Belle had been introduced, thanks to Mrs. Croscombe, to several agreeable and handsome young men; why did her volatile fancy have to alight on Mr. Lisser? And while she might tell her stepfather that such an artist would be a welcome addition to the dinner table at many a lofty home, it didn’t mean that he would in any way be considered a suitable lover for a Miss Isabel Darcy, with a fortune of some thirty thousand pounds or more.
    Belle was a flirt, a determined and accomplished flirt, and now her attention was fixed on Mr. Lisser, there was nothing Cassandra could do to prevent her cousin from playing off her tricks. And it seemed that Henry Lisser was not displeased by the pleasure Belle took in his company. When he was at work, his attention was focussed entirely upon his subject. He was grave and uncommunicative, saying little to his subjects, and those few words merely a request to move this way or that, or to place a hand or reposition an arm. He gave instructions to his assistant, as necessary, and sometimes spoke to Cassandra, as to a pupil, but in a low, indifferent voice.
    To her admiration, he banished Belle from his presence while he painted, in a kind enough way, but with sufficient authority that she accepted his rejection with no more than a toss of her head. The children, of course, could not hold their poses for very long, so he had filled in their small shapes and then dismissed them, bidding them torun along and play with their cousin Miss Belle. They skipped off, and he was left to do some more work on the patient Partingtons.
    Cassandra was fascinated to see how he worked, it was so very different from her own style of painting. He took numerous sketches, charcoal or graphite, and had always a sketchbook in his hand, drawing the house from numerous angles: “You must see the whole in your mind, even while you only paint one view.”
    Cassandra was full of admiration and questions. He asked to see her notebooks, making few direct comments, but suggesting a shading here, another grouping of a composition there, and gave her some valuable advice as to portraiture, although, as he said, his own genius did not lie in that direction. Oh, yes, he could paint figures in a landscape, but head and shoulders or full-length portraits were not for him.
    “You should travel, Miss Darcy, it would be of great benefit to you to go to Italy, to study the works of the masters and also to see for yourself the landscapes of that country.”
    “Italy! Why, Mr. Lisser, Bath would be an adventure for me, and as for London, I long to go there, but”—with a sigh—“it is not at present possible.”
    Mr. Lisser remembered what Herr Winter had said about his talented pupil, and said no more about her painting or travel. Instead he wanted to talk about Belle.
    “She is your cousin, I believe?”
    “The relationship is not such a close one. We share great-grandparents through her father and my mother, and there is also a connection through my father, who was the younger son of a younger son. Belle’s father is the eldest son of an eldest son. Do you have brothers and sisters, Mr. Lisser?”
    “I have a younger brother, and two sisters.”
    “Are