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down by the side helplessly? One day, I had just finished the picture with the child's hands tucked up close together at the neck, as children sleep, when I noticed my boy's hand fall over the side. I thought it exquisite—so pleading and pitiful. I altered the hands in the picture at once, and painted the left one as you see it now."

The Village Wedding.
From the Picture by Luke Fildes, R.A.
(By kind permission of the owners of the copyright, Messrs. Thos. Agnew & Sons.

The nurse asked for the lamp as a little memento of the painting of "The Doctor," hence its presence in the nursery.

The staircase leading to the studio is lined with many proofs of Mr. Fildes' work; the tapestry which hides the walls is very choice and beautiful. Here are "The Casuals," "The School Girl"—the diploma picture—and many Venetian views views and figures. "The Village Wedding"—you remember it, the bridegroom holding the parasol of the bride, who looks down demurely, the stalwart guardsman with his mother resting proudly on one arm, and a young woman on the other who wishes "it was her"? The soldier came from Knightsbridge barracks—a fine fellow over six feet high. How he used to blush as he stood with the two ladies when being painted! He went out to Egypt and came back invalided. What a trouble the bridegroom was to the artist!

Mrs. Fildes' Boudoir.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.

"I have in my studio," said Mr. Fildes, "a picture of a boy who figures in 'The Penitent.' When I was making studies for 'The Village Wedding,' some ten years afterwards, I put up at Aston Tirrold, in Berkshire. I secured, as I thought, the very man for the bridegroom. He was a shepherd, and only recently married. A farmer, with whom I was very friendly, let me use his barn as a studio, but on this particular occasion I was painting in the apple orchard. I secured my shepherd friend, and soon after I had started sketching him Í noticed he went deadly pale.

"'Are you ill?' I asked.

"'No, zur,' he said, 'I think it's th' smell o' that stuff you're using!'

"'I suggested he should rest. He did so for ten minutes, and we resumed work. Suddenly he went more ghastly than ever.