NOLLEKENS AND THE WIDOW.

Smith gives a rather amusing account of a lady in weeds for her husband, who “came drooping like a willow to the sculptor, desiring a monument, and declaring that she did not care what money was expended on the memory of one she loved so. ‘Do what you please, but oh! do it quickly,’ were her parting orders. Nollekens went to work, made the design, finished the model, and began to look for a block of marble to carve it from, when in dropped the lady—she had been absent some three months. ‘Poor soul,’ said the sculptor, when she was announced, ‘I thought she would come soon, but I am ready.’ The lady came light of foot, and lighter of look. ‘Ah, how do you do, Mr. Nollekens? Well, you have not commenced the model?’ ‘Aye, but I have though,’ returned the sculptor, ‘and there it stands, finished.’ ‘There it is, indeed,’ sighed the lady, throwing herself into a chair; they looked at one another for a minute’s space or so—she spoke first. ‘These, my good friend, are, I know, early days for this little change’—she looked at her dress, from which the early profusion of crape had disappeared,—‘but since I saw you, I have met with an old Roman acquaintance of yours, who has made me an offer, and I don’t know how he would like to see in our church a monument of such expense to my late husband. Indeed, on second thoughts, it would perhaps be considered quite enough, if I got our mason to put up a mural tablet, and that you know he can cut very prettily.’ ‘My charge, madam, for the model,’ said the sculptor, ‘is one hundred guineas.’ ‘Enormous! enormous!’ said the lady, but drew out her purse and paid it.” The mutability of human nature!