he
had been known to make the journey to Paris merely to hear Diodati sing;
finally, in common rumour a profligate whom no prudent householder would admit
to the society of his wife and daughters. However, at the time of young
Mallard's coming under his notice he had been married about a year. Mrs. Doran
came from Manchester; she was very beautiful, but had slight education, and
before long Sowerby Bridge remarked that the husband was too often away from
home.
    Doran and the elder Mallard, having once met, were disposed to see more of
each other; in spite of the difference of social standing, they became
intimates, and Mr. Mallard had at length some one with whom he found pleasure in
conversing. He did not long enjoy the new experience. In the winter that
followed, he died of a cold contracted on one of his walks when the hills were
deep in snow.
    Doran remained the firm friend of the family. Local talk had inspired Mrs.
Mallard with a prejudice against him, but substantial services mitigated this,
and the widow was in course of time less uneasy at her son's being practically
under the guardianship of this singular man of business. Mallard, after
preliminary training, was sent to the studio of a young artist whom Doran
greatly admired, Cullen Banks, then struggling for the recognition he was never
to enjoy, death being beforehand with him. Mrs. Mallard was given to understand
that no expenses were involved save those of the lad's support in Manchester,
where Banks lived, and Mallard himself did not till long after know that his
friend had paid the artist a fee out of his own pocket. Two things did Mallard
learn from Doran himself which were to have a marked influence on his life - a
belief that only in landscape can a painter of our time hope to do really great
work, and a limitless contempt of the Royal Academy. In Manchester he made the
acquaintance of several people with whom Doran was familiar, among them Edward
Spence, then in the shipping-office, and Jacob Bush Bradshaw, well on his way to
making a fortune out of silk. On Banks's death, Mallard, now nearly twenty-one,
went to London for a time. His patrimony was modest, but happily, if the capital
remained intact, sufficient to save him from the cares that degrade and waste a
life. His mother and sisters had also an income adequate to their simple habits.
    In the meantime, Mrs. Doran was dead. After giving birth to a daughter, she
fell into miserable health; her