glanced first at the signature. "Darrell!" he exclaimed. "Oh, it is so, then!" He read with great attention, put down the letter, and shook Lionel by the hand. "I congratulate you; all is settled as it should be. Go? of course—you would be an ill-mannered lout if you did not. Is it far from hence—must you return to town first?"
Lionel. "No! I find I can get across the country—two hours by the railway. There is a station at the town which bears the postmark of the letter. I shall make for that, if you advise it."
"You knew I should advise it, or you would not have made those researches into Bradshaw."
"Shrewdly said," answered Lionel, laughing; "but I wished for your sanction of my crude impressions."
"You never told me your cousin's name was Darrell—not that I should have been much wiser, if you had; but, thunder and lightning, Lionel, do you know that your cousin Darrell is a famous man?"
Lionel. "Famous!—nonsense. I suppose he was a good lawyer, for I have heard my mother say, with a sort of contempt, that he had made a great fortune at the bar!"
Vance. "But he was in Parliament."
Lionel. "Was he? I did not know."
Vance. "And this is senatorial fame! You never heard your school-fellows talk of Mr. Darrell?—they would not have known his name if you had boasted of it!"
Lionel. "Certainly not."
Vance. "Would your school-fellows have known the name of Wilkie, of Landseer, of Turner, Maclise—I speak of Painters!"
Lionel. "I should think so, indeed."
Vance (soliloquizing). "And yet Her Serene Sublimityship, Lady Selina Vipont, says to me with divine compassion, 'Not in the way of your delightful art to know such men as Mr. Darrell!' Oh, as if I did not see through it—oh, as if I did not see through it too when she said, apropos of my jean cap and velveteen jacket, 'What matters how you dress? Every one knows who you are!' Would she have said that to the Earl of Dunder, or even to Sir Jasper Stollhead? No. I am the painter Frank Vance—nothing more nor less; and if I stood on my head in a check shirt and a sky-colored apron, Lady Selina Vipont would kindly murmur, 'Only Frank Vance the painter—what does it signify?' Aha!—and they think to put me to use!—puppets and lay figures!—it is I who put them to use! Harkye, Lionel, you are nearer akin to these fine folks than I knew of. Promise me one thing: you may become of their set, by
