When I got back to the studio, a new picture met my eye. I found Laura giving vent to her feelings in a wild dance of jubilation, the half-crown sparkling above her head as she held it up triumphantly with both hands, whilst clusters of brown hair which had been carefully pinned up out of the way, for I was painting her back, now cascaded over her shoulders and down to her waist, suggesting new and original shapes for fashionable capes or opera-cloaks. When Nature's mantle had once more been pinned up and a drapery substituted for it, she settled down in the chair the master had just vacated, and proceeded to discuss the grave question as to what should be done with the half-crown. She scorned my suggestion that she should spend it on a pair of gloves, and then and there decided to have it made into a brooch as a memento of the memorable afternoon.
The next day I received a letter from Browning indicating the particular passages from Shelley's poem which he thought would be suitable to my pictures.
That Laura was a queer girl; it was not till months after her first visit to me that I chanced to find out she was a good pianist and had a pretty voice, and only when she had got quite acclimatised in the studio did I elicit the truth about that first visit. She had always put me off with the evasive answer that "a friend" had given her my address, but at last she confided to me that there was no friend in the case.
"We were walking down Sloane Street," she said, "Amy Stewart and I, when we saw your board up with 'The Studio, Cadogan Gardens' on it. Your dog was at the gate wagging his tail, and seemed like asking us in. I patted him, and said to Amy, 'Let's go in for a lark and say we are models.' And she said, 'Yes; you go first.' So we rang the bell and asked for the artist. You said you were busy and hadn't much time to look at us, and you didn't seem to want us--so we stopped." Her father, I then found out, was a well-to-do builder, much absorbed in his business. No, she said, in answer to my question, he was not aware that she was sitting; her mother was, but had never asked for particulars. Let well alone, I thought, anxious as I was not to lose my model. But not long afterwards I was much startled by Laura's announcement that the sittings must henceforth be given up. She was very sorry, but she was forbidden to come any more.