form grew indistinct among the crowd on shore-the windings of the river soon shut the well-known town from his view-and Ernest Basil was fairly launched upon the world. CHAPTER III. A NEW YORK BELLE-SOMETHING MORE THAN A PLEASANT ACQUAINTANCE-TOUCH AND GO. WE have now accounted for Ernest being a student of art in New York, and brought our story to the period represented in our first chapter. No wonder then if he enjoyed the change from a town, comparatively speaking a village, to New York. Here he went into society, judged entirely by his own merits, without any of those miserable restrictions to happiness which mark a little community. After his relaxation from close study with Mr. Talbot, and at the drawing school in the evening allowed him opportunity to go more into company, he made a greater progress in self-confidence and savoir faire in one winter than he would have done in ten years' residence in the colony. Artists of the first ability are of course eagerly sought after in society everywhere, but in America and in New York the profession generally appears to stand higher than in England, and artists in general go more into what is called the "upper ten thousand," or by the sans culottes less elegantly, but expressively, "the cod-fish aristocracy." The opening of the National Academy Exhibition of Paintings in New York is gene rally celebrated with a supper, to which all the exhibitors are invited, and where a great majority of the celebrities may be seen. On the occasion of Ernest exhibiting his first picture, a breach was made in the usual custom, and a soirée substituted instead of a supper. It was done to give greater èclat and popularity to the exhibition. Nevertheless, the artists grumbled a good deal. The ladies they said would always come, but such a supper with its accompaniment of toasts and speeches from some of the most eminent men in the union, was too good to be lost. Ernest, however, was too young and gallant to think so as he wandered through the rooms and observed the fair specimens of American beauty which met the eye in every direction, making even the exquisite female portraits of Elliott and Ingham look tame and insipid, for though the loveliness of American women does not last, there is a rare delicacy, a spirituelle about it, which may safely challenge competition with any country. He and the Prince wandered through the rooms together, for the latter, though not an exhibitor, had sufficient influence to be admitted. Ernest was dressed plainly and simply in a correct evening costume. The Prince, whose means allowed him to be very recherché in his dress, was in the extreme of young American fashion. His hat, which he carried into the room with him, had a brim wide enough almost for a quaker, his pants seemed to have been made on him, so excruciatingly close did they fit to his legs, his shoes were so blunt at the point that they appeared too short for his feet, the sleeves of his coat were very wide, and he wore lemon-coloured gloves which it had taken him an hour to get on. They met Pearson, who had a very nice little picture in the exhibition, and were sauntering round the room, criticising alternately the pictures and the living beauties, when Ernest felt his arm squeezed like a vice, while the Prince at the same time exclaimed, in a very tragical whisper, "There she is standing by her portrait. Hide me-let me escape from her observation." Nevertheless, it became apparent very soon both to Ernest and Pearson that the Prince, so far from wishing to escape from the attention of the young lady, was extremely anxious to attract her notice. Ernest and Pearson both looked in the direction indicated by the Prince, and beheld a strikingly beautiful young lady standing at no great distance from her own portrait, as if she had no great objection to |