(upsetting my coffee-cup in doing so), and mentally exclaimed, `I will photograph that woman, or perish in the attempt!'

After breakfast the work of the day commenced, which I will here briefly record.

PICTURE 1.--Paterfamilias. This I wanted to try again, but they all declared it would do very well, and had `just his usual expression'; though unless his usual expression was that of a man with a bone in his throat, endeavouring to alleviate the agony of choking by watching the end of his nose with both eyes, I must admit that this was too favourable a statement of the case.

PICTURE 2.--Materfamilias. She told us with a simper, as she sat down, that she `had been very fond of theatricals in her youth', and that she `wished to be taken in a favourite Shakespearean character'. What the character was, after long and anxious thought on the subject, I have given up as a hopeless mystery, not knowing any one of his heroines in whom an attitude of such spasmodic energy could have been combined with a face of such blank indifference, or who could have been thought appropriately costumed in a blue silk gown, with a Highland scarf over one shoulder, a ruffle of Queen Elizabeth's time round the throat, and a hunting-whip.

PICTURE 3.--17th sitting. Placed the baby in profile. After waiting till the usual kicking had subsided, uncovered the lens. The little wretch instantly threw its head back, luckily only an inch, as it was stopped by the nurse's nose, establishing the infant's claim to `first blood' (to use a sporting phrase). This, of course, gave two eyes to the result, something that might be called a nose, and an unnaturally wide mouth. Called it a full-face accordingly and went on to

PICTURE 4.--The three younger girls, as they would have appeared, if by any possibility a black dose could have been administered to each of them at the same moment, and the three tied together by the hair before the expression produced by the medicine has subsided from any of their faces. Of course, I kept this view of the subject to myself, and merely said that `it reminded me of a picture of the three Graces', but the sentence ended in an involuntary groan, which I had the greatest difficulty in converting into a cough.

PICTURE 5.--This was to have been the great artistic triumph of the day; a family group, designed by the two parents, and combining the domestic with the allegorical. It was intended to represent the baby being crowned with flowers, by the united efforts of the children, regulated by the advice of the father, under the personal superintendence of the mother; and to combine with this the secondary meaning of `Victory transferring her laurel crown to Innocence, with Resolution, Independence, Faith, Hope and Charity, assisting in the graceful task, while Wisdom looks benignly on, and smiles approval!' Such, I say, was the intention; the result, to any unprejudiced observer, was capable of but one interpretation-- that the baby was in a fit--that the mother (doubtless under some erroneous notions of the principles of Human Anatomy), was endeavouring to recover it by bringing the crown of its head in contact with its chest--that the two boys, seeing no prospect for the infant but immediate destruction, were tearing out some locks of its hair as mementos of the fatal event--that two of the girls were waiting for a chance at the baby's hair, and employing the time in strangling the third--and that the father, in despair at the extraordinary conduct of his family, had stabbed himself, and was feeling for his pencil-case, to make a memorandum of having done so.

All this time I had no opportunity of asking my Amelia for a sitting, but during luncheon I succeeded in finding one, and, after introducing the subject of photographs in general, I turned to her and said, `before the day is out, Miss Amelia, I hope to do myself the honour of coming to you for a negative.'

With a sweet smile she replied `certainly, Mr. Tubbs. There is a cottage near here, that I wish you would try after luncheon, and when you've done that, I shall be at your service.'

`Faix! an' I hope she'll give you a decoisive one!' broke in that awkward Captain Flanaghan, `wo'n't you, Mely Darlint?' `I trust so, Captain Flanaghan,' I interposed with great dignity; but all politeness is wasted on