All this is in explanation of the foregoing remarks about Mrs.
Beresford's ingenuity, thrift, and genius in selecting types to paint. The ingenuity lay in the idea itself; the thrift, in securing models that should belong to the Beresford "sit-fast acres" and not have to be searched for and "hired in" by the day;and the genius, in producing nothing but enchanting, engrossing, adorable, eminently "paintable" children. They are just as obedient, interesting, grammatical, and virtuous as other people's offspring, yet they are so beautiful that it would be the height of selfishness not to let the world see them and turn green with envy.
When viewed by the casual public in a gallery, nobody of course believes that they are real until some kind friend says: "No, oh, no! not ideal heads at all; perfect likenesses; the children of Mr.and Mrs. Beresford; Penelope Hamilton, whose signature you see in the corner, IS Mrs. Beresford."
When they are exhibited in the guise of, and under such titles as:
"Young April," "In May Time," "Girl with Chickens," "Three of a Kind" (Billy with a kitten and a puppy tumbling over him), "Little Mothers" (Frances and Sally with their dolls), "When all the World is Young" (Billy, Frances, and Sally under the trees surrounded by a riot of young feathered things, with a lamb and a Jersey calf peeping over a fence in the background), then Himself stealthily visits the gallery. He stands somewhere near the pictures pulling his moustache nervously and listening to the comments of the bystanders. Not a word of his identity or paternity does he vouchsafe, but occasionally some acquaintance happens to draw near, perhaps to compliment or congratulate him. Then he has been heard to say vaingloriously: "Oh, no! they are not flattered; rather the reverse. My wife has an extraordinary faculty of catching likenesses, and of course she has a wonderful talent, but she agrees with me that she never quite succeeds in doing the children justice!"