I well remember the first words of French that I mastered, and the sensation I created when I, a very small boy, irrepressibly burst forth with my declaration:

"O Madam, kay voos aite bell!"

This was addressed across the friendly supper table to Madame de R., who with her husband, the well-known portrait-painter, was spending her honeymoon at Boulogne.

To Boulogne we too had gone, as people went then when they wanted a change of air, or as they go now to Africa or the antipodes.

On this occasion our party consisted of my parents, three sisters, myself, and an English nurse, who, from first to last, was unutterably shocked by what she called the outrageous proceedings of the foreigners, and by the fearful language that parrot used, who always gathered a little sympathetic crowd in front of the shell and wooden-spade shop.

My sisters had a French governess of the approved type.

"Ma?tre Corbeau sur un arbre perché," she recited to me with conventional emphasis and genuine affectation. On such occasions I stood staring at her, surprised at the amount of mouth-twisting and wriggling it took to talk French. Then I tried to do as much, and said:

"Mayter Korbow sure unn ahber per Shay."

"Perrrché," she interposed, and

"Pure Shay," I repeated.

"Mais non, mon petit chéri, perrrr—ché!" and so on, till we got to "apeuprès ce langage," the "a pew pray" being, I recollect, a terrible stumbling-block.

I was about eighteen when I met that handsome Madame de R. again in Paris. She reminded me of my early appreciation of her beauty, and was anxious to know whether I was still inclined to express my admiration as warmly as I did formerly.

"To be sure," I said. "Yes. Mais oui certainement, madame." But, oh dear! how little female French I must have understood in those days, and how little male French I must have had at my command! for—I must confess—I said no more.

The de R.\'s became great people under the Empire: he and she—or perhaps more correctly she and he—got into the inner Court circle, where she soon distinguished herself as a leader of fashion, and he as a very successful painter of life-size fashion-plates in oils. Both his works and her personal charms were graciously smiled upon by the imperial master himself.

Apropos of my French, I may say that I had every opportunity of improving it. I soon entered the Atelier Gleyre, that studio we have heard about in reference to Du Maurier, Whistler, Poynter, and others, who there learnt to draw their first bonshommes, and to spoil their first canvases.

I had made a sort of mental vow to speak nought but the language of the country for the first year of my stay in Paris. In the beginning I found it rather tough work, but a French studio is a good school. I plunged in head foremost, and soon got on swimmingly. From the first I was attracted by the brilliancy of Parisian slang, and by the terseness of French argot (that is, the thieves\' language). As for the genuine article, real French, as spoken by real Frenchwomen in real salons on a "Madame re?oit" day—nothing could exceed my admiration for it. But the Quartier Latin, with its studios and garrets, its crêmeries and little restaurants, all bedecked with clever works from the brushes of the habitués, was the high school in which I graduated and which in due time turned me out a fair specimen of the classical Rapin—the art student as Paris alone produces him. In a word, I soon felt quite at home in that delightful haven of unrest we call Bohemia.

And the friends of those days! I made many and lost few. There is one who stands out prominently from amongst the rest, and he is connected in my mind with a thousand and one incidents of my Paris life. His name was Claude; Claude Raoul Dupont.

At our first meeting I felt that I should like to make friends with him. He was what the Italians call sympatico—not quite the same thing as sympathetic; just the sort of man whom little girls would unhesitatingly request to ring the bell they couldn\'t reach, or boys would call to their assistance with a "Please, sir, lend us your stick to get down that cap from up there," or "to fetch out that ball from inside them railings;" the sort of man with whom you or I would at once have got into conversation, if we had met him in a railway carriage.

My first acquaintance with him was in that Atelier Gleyre. We were just fellow-students at the beginning, then chums, bons camarades, soon friends, and finally we got linked together by the most lasting of ties, that of brotherly love. So it comes that the story of his life is most vividly impressed on my mind. It is uneventful, perhaps, and differs little from any other story that pictures the artist\'s life, with its hopes and aspirations, its sprinkling of love-making and its glorious consummation of love-finding, but I must attempt to give an outline of it, if but in memory of my friend.

To begin at the beginning, let me sketch our days of good comradeship, and put in a wash of background here and there, and a few touches of local colour in illustration of the life we led.

You could tell at a glance that Claude was a "Rapin," but that was not surprising, for in those days it had not yet become the aim and end of the young artist to conceal his profession and to walk through life incognito, with a well-groomed chimney-pot implanted on the top of his head. So you must fancy Claude with a soft felt hat of a species even now not quite extinct, although, as we all know, superseded by the boiled apple-pudding-shaped dome, ornamented with a gutter, which we have universally adopted, and which we call a pot hat, a bowler, a billycock hat, or as the coachman or groom says, a bridle.

It was quite appropriate that Claude should wear a wide-awake, as being in keeping with an expression that showed him always on the qui vive. He was tall, rather too much so for the breadth of his shoulders, but he moved with great freedom and ease, and as he was mostly on the move, he also mostly showed to advantage.

In the Atelier Gleyre he was the leading spirit. That studio was situated in the Rue de l\'Ouest, flanking the Luxembourg Gardens. It was a large, high room with the regulation studio window, and was furnished with one model table on wheels, one iron spitfire of a stove, and a lot of three-legged easels and four-legged stools, not to forget a large screen behind which the models undressed; all things bearing traces of the perilous lives they led, and showing picturesque seams and scars where they were begrimed with the scrapings from perennial palettes. The professor very liberally gave his instruction gratis. For the working expenses of the Atelier the students clubbed together, each contributing ten francs per month to the "masse." At the time I entered, Claude was "Massier," that is, a sort of secretary, treasurer, and boss combined. He occupied that exalted position with much distinction, for he could be alternately serious and absurd, weighty and trivial. Common sense on the one hand; an uncommon amount of nonsense on the other. In fact his character was a curious compound of elements seemingly opposed, but working in harmony together. He was facile princeps as a blagueur, that is, he could chaff unmercifully, talk tall, make a fool imagine himself wise, and a wise man feel foolish. It takes a double-distilled Frenchman to make a full-blown blagueur, and such a man was Dupont.

We were a lively set, and the jokes that were bandied about, coupled with the most unparliamentary, not to say vituperative language, at first startled me. But the Rapin\'s bark is worse than his bite. "Il est défendu de chahuter la religion et la famille" was an unwritten law, that excluded those two delicate topics, the family and religion, from the field of word-battle. Another law bade you keep your temper. We might have hurled the most obnoxious of epithets at one another, but when the available catalogue of abuse was exhausted, we would wind up with some good-humoured trump card, like "C\'est égal, je suis plus bête que toi," which, freely translated, says, "Never mind, I am the bigger fool of the two."

One of the first things that struck me in the atelier was a large felt hat forming a sort of centre on the ceiling. That was Gobelot\'s hat. It was there just because some of the boys had taken a dislike to it; in fact it was a priggish hat, and as Gobelot had a twitchy sort of a face that would work well under feelings of surprise and resentment, they thought they would like to watch him, from the first moment when he would miss his hat, to the last when he would discover its whereabouts.

It had got fixed on the ceiling with some difficulty, whilst its owner had fallen asleep by the stove. The model table was placed in the centre of the room, and the ladder held upright upon it by half-a-dozen sturdy arms; a light-weight clambered to the top and did the nailing. The result proved pre-eminently satisfactory to all except Gobelot, and even he, I think, after the lapse of a few months, got to be rather proud of the excelsiority accorded to his headgear.

This was by no means the first experience he had had of studio life. On his entrance into the Atelier Gleyre, he had set himself to draw the figure of Sinel, one of the leading models of the day, and had betrayed more self-confidence than was compatible with his position as a nouveau. He had been working for a couple of days, when Monsieur Gleyre came to visit his students. The bear-garden was suddenly transformed into a grave academy. Respectful silence and order prevailed, as the master passed from easel to easel, criticising here and encouraging there, and generally enunciating wise artistic saws for the benefit of the students. When Gobelot\'s turn came, he paused a while before he expressed an opinion on his work. At last he said kindly but firmly: "Young man, you have come to study with me, and it is my duty to advise you honestly and straight-forwardly. Believe me, devote all your attention to the human foot; learn to draw that correctly,—and then perhaps you may be successful as a bootmaker." Therewith he passed on to the neighbour. Shortly afterwards the real Monsieur Gleyre came in, for the whole thing was a plant, and Gobelot was officially introduced as the nouveau by the sham professor.

It is not a sinecure to be the nouveau. One is the butt of endless jokes, and has to take them meekly; one is at everybody\'s beck and call, to pick up a brush, or to run for a ha\'porth of bread or a penn\'orth of fried potatoes. When I was the new boy, I knew resistance was useless, so I served my time cheerfully, swallowing snakes, as the French call it, with apparent relish.

But one day I was caught napping. I had joined in the general conversation, and had so far forgotten myself as to make a joke, and, what was worse, they said, not a bad one. This was adding insult to injury; a storm of indignation broke forth, and the cry of "à l\'échelle" ("To the ladder") was raised. I should then and there have suffered the penalty of my rashness, had not Dupont interposed. He mounted the rostrum, i.e. the model table, and made an eloquent appeal on my behalf. I was an Englishman, he pleaded, and as such I had been reared on raw beef and bran puddings; he would himself now see that I was kept on lighter food (I suppose he meant frogs). Yes, I had presumed to trespass on the domain of "esprit," the exclusive property of Frenchmen in general, and of the duffers now before him in particular—he would not offend them by calling them gentlemen. My joke, he admitted, was a good one, but then, what could you expect from a benighted foreigner, who did not know the value of a bad one. And so on. However feeble his defence may appear to us as we read it in cold blood, it had the desired effect, and I was saved from my impending fate. But I was not to get off for long. Only a couple of days afterwards, an incident led to my punishment. It was luncheon time and I was studying the greasy paper that my potatoes had been wrapped up in, probably a leaf from some old register, so many tons of which are issued daily by bureaucratic Paris. I had got to my second course, roast chestnuts done to a T, when I had a sort of secret forewarning that a certain long stick with a hook, one of the studio properties, was stealthily approaching towards the stool I was sitting on. A sudden jerk, and the stool was pulled from beneath me; but being fully prepared, I failed to collapse, and remained as if seated, continuing my meal as if nothing had occurred. Such independence could not be tolerated. Stop, the well-known caricaturist, now formally moved that I be "mis à l\'échelle," and the resolution was unanimously carried. So the ladder was laid on the floor, and I was bound to it hands and feet; then it and I were hoisted up and placed against the wall. Next Stop proceeded to bare my breast, and to paint thereon a highly coloured picture representing several pigs and their doings. In the meanwhile the poker was being made red-hot in the stove. The occasion must be marked by a scar, I was given to understand, and I can assure those who have never gone through a similar experience, that a touch from a red-hot poker is very painful, even if the red is only vermilion and the heat imaginary. I was informed that I should have to preserve the pig picture for a fortnight, after which time I should be called up for inspection.

When a nouveau is entered at an atelier, he is expected to pay "la bienvenue," his welcome. Gobelot had preceded me as the new boy, and as we had both been pretty liberal, a sum of about fifty francs was in readiness to be used for some sociable purpose. After some deliberation it was decided to invest our capital in donkeys, to be hired in the Bois de Boulogne. So one fine afternoon we found ourselves in full force, selecting our mounts at Père Delaborde\'s well-known stables. His donkeys were always the best fed and best kept, and to us, who had never been to the East, and therefore did not know what a donkey was really like, they seemed quite decent and cheerful specimens of their kind. Here and there, to be sure, there was one who had not become resigned to his fate, and who would stiffen his neck with an emphasis that showed that he would have used strong language, had he been endowed with the power of speech. But on the whole Monsieur Delaborde\'s donkeys were quite docile and manageable, and accustomed to be ruled by the little shouting savages known as donkey-boys.

There were two horses in the stables, and it was decided that Gobelot and I should mount them and take command of the donkey brigade. The responsibility of leadership soon, however, devolved on me alone, for Gobelot\'s horse had, I suppose through long-standing habits of companionship, taken to the ways of its mates; so it kept step with them, and stretched its ears full length, and took all things philosophically. My steed was made of very different metal. He started off at a lively pace, giving me an opportunity of showing off my horsemanship, acquired at the riding-school in Leipsic. I felt pleasantly aware of my superiority over my donkey-mounted friends, especially over Dupont, whose long legs were dangling very near the ground, he having left his stirrups, or they him, and over Gobelot, who was ineffectually trying to break into a canter.

Very suddenly and unexpectedly my horse stopped as if it had divined that I thought it time to inspect my followers. It was my intention to form them into column, and then to execute one or two strategical movements that seemed well adapted to the occasion. As a first step towards this, I wanted to wheel round and face my men, but my steed was evidently in a meditative mood and would not be disturbed. I applied my heels to its flanks, and pulled its head round, till its eye met mine, but its body remained stationary. When it had thought out whatever it may have had on its mind, it started off again as suddenly as it had stopped, before I had had an opportunity of commencing operations. This capricious starting and stopping, over which I had no control, was, I need not say, a source of annoyance to me, and of hilarity to my friends. It was to be more than this presently.

I had got pretty far ahead of the others, when my mount came to one of its dead stops. I contented myself with hoping it would soon have done staring vacantly. Looking round, I noticed some commotion in the distant donkey group, and an opening in its ranks to let a carriage pass. As it approached, it proved to be a well-appointed phaeton, and I recognised Louis Napoleon, who was driving himself, accompanied by a gentleman and by two servants in green and gold livery. I made every effort to get out of the way, but in vain. The prince took in the situation at a glance and considerately deviated from his course, seeing that I could not keep it clear for him. A smile flitted across his face and enlivened his rigidly waxed moustache, as he turned to his companion and made some remark. I did not catch it, but my horse probably did, and must have taken it as encouraging, for it started off in an uncontrollable fit of loyalty, and whether I liked it or not, I had to ride by the side of the phaeton, acting, for the time being, as equerry to the future emperor. He took it kindly; the two green and gold ones were amazed and indignant, but too well trained to lynch me, and so I galloped on till once more my quadruped stopped and again became absorbed in thought.

When my companions came up, they gave expression to their unbounded delight at my discomfiture, and generally treated me, their appointed leader, with every mark of disrespect. This time the horse must have mistaken their vociferous hooting for a signal to return home, for it started off in that direction, and took me back without once indulging in the usual hiatus.

I dismounted, and whilst, on the one hand, I was glad to be now able to regulate my own movements, on the other I was smarting under the recollection of my ignominious failure, and the jeering and hooting still rang in my ears.

A couple of sergents de ville were on duty close by, a circumstance which suggested to me the opportunity of getting even with my insubordinate men.

"Well, Messieurs," I said to the policemen, "I think there might be a few more of you along the principal avenues. It is positively disgraceful. I don\'t mind a bit of a joke myself, but in my country we don\'t play practical jokes on royalty, as that young chap with the brown felt hat did on your Prince President."

"What he did?"

"Why, ride alongside the prince\'s carriage, giving himself airs and posing for son Altesse\'s aide-de-camp. And, following him as fast as they could get along, a band of asses on donkeys, braying like imbéciles. Well, bon jour, Messieurs; after all, it\'s no business of mine. I only thought you might care to know."

On the arrival of the band, I learnt afterwards, they were confronted by four sergents de ville, the two original ones having been reinforced. Gobelot, the man with the brown felt hat, was asked for his passport, and, not being able to produce it, was looked upon with suspicion and closely cross-questioned. Dupont rather entered into my joke and let things go wrong, till it was high time to set them right. Then I was denounced, and it was not without some difficulty made clear to the authorities that the informer was the real culprit. So Gobelot the innocent was only warned to be more careful another time, and my name is probably inscribed on some black list at the Préfecture.

* * * * * *

Claude was a most indefatigable worker; as an artist ever severe and uncompromising, studying on the lines of Ingres and Flandrin, loving a bird, a stone, a woman for the sake of the outline they imprinted on his mind, and ever seeking an ideal contour, whether he held the pencil or the brush. His enthusiasm was quite catching; so under his influence I soon began to love drawing for its own sake, and we spent many an evening together studying Dante\'s stern features from the cast or working from the living model.

He had inherited his classical predilections from his father, who himself had started life as an artist, but had found that large historical landscapes à la Poussin were not easily convertible into bread and butter, and had therefore wisely abandoned art as a profession, and had embraced the administrative career, in which he rose and prospered. His leisure hours he still spent at the easel, but his canvases were not as large as formerly; in his productions he always gave me the impression that he could use more emerald and olive greens, to the exclusion of other colours, on a given space, than any man I had ever known.

He was quite touching in his love for Claude.

"What I have dreamed of and struggled for in vain," he would say, "that boy is going to realise. He is born with du style. Believe me, my child, outside le style there is no art. From the time of Raphael down to the present day, nothing is worth recording, nothing remains or will remain, that is not de l\'école. La grande école, my child, le style, la ligne, voilà le salut, believe me."

I winced, for I loved, above all the colourists, the Spaniards, the Dutch; but he was so sincere, so convincing, that for the time being I felt as if I could have sold my birthright for a line of beauty.

"He is quite right," Claude would afterwards say to me, "but he puts his finger in his eye, if he thinks he can flatten your bump of colour. Every man is born with his own bumps, and they are bound to grow with him just as his hair does."

And with that we would plunge headlong into the famous discussion sur la forme et la couleur, each doing battle for his god with the energy of youthful fanaticism, and feeling all the while that we would have given anything to be able to exchange bumps with one another. How much further his bump would lead him, I thought, and how admirably he was organised to use it in the service of high art! And he, on the other hand, would say—

"What am I, my dear fellow, as compared to you, born in the purple of art as you are? You hold the trump cards, and will," &c. &c.

Then there was an uncle of Claude\'s, l\'oncle Auguste, whose views clashed fearfully with the artistic aspirations of my friend and of his father. He was a tanner, at the head of a large establishment which he had founded—a self-made man, with a lot of cleverly-grabbed money. In his social intercourse he had so carefully surrounded himself with inferior intellects, that he could not but shine as a bright light amongst them—a circumstance which led him to form a most exaggerated estimate of his own wisdom and mental powers.

"My dear Jean," he would say to his brother, "I should really have thought your own experiences with those blessed paints would have made a wiser man of you. Surely one victim to the mania in the family should have been enough, without dragging that poor boy into it; a splendid fellow, sane and sound, if it weren\'t for the rubbish you put into his head. He was cut out for the business; never happier than when he was pottering about at the works. Why, when he was a mere child, he very nearly got drowned in the tan vat." And turning to Claude: "What have you to say to it, you young rascal? Ah well, I know you are hopelessly lost, since you got out of those plaster casts and those bones and muscles into that—What do you call that place, where able-bodied young men, strong and fit for work, sit all day drawing mannikins! Une vraie fabrique de bonshommes! En voilà un métier!"

The same evening l\'oncle Auguste was holding forth to some friends he had invited to sit at his feet and at his whist-table—

"Now mark my words, messieurs; we are going to make an artist of that nephew of mine, and one who will surprise the world. He has been received first on a list of I don\'t know how many hundreds of students at the Life Class of the école des Beaux Arts. Oui, messieurs, art is an heirloom in our family; we hand it down from generation to generation."

But differences of opinion on the merits of the artistic career led to no more than skirmishes; the real tug-of-war between the Duponts, father and son on the one hand, and l\'oncle Auguste on the other, came when they exchanged their views on matrimonial alliances. The former to be sure looked upon the tying of the nuptial knot from the ideal point of view; the latter very strongly held the belief that a young man should marry money, and should do so early in life.

"Suppose now," he would argue, "you mean to marry 100,000 francs, why put it off till you are twenty-six or twenty-eight? Why lose the interest of your money for so many years?"

"But perhaps, uncle, my lady-love is still in the nursery, and I must wait awhile till I can declare my undying affection. Yes, I believe she is only just beginning to play the piano, and I really cannot take her till she has done practising her scales, you know. Besides, her father has only lately started collecting the 100,000 francs, and I think he has not got further than 3500."

"God forbid, unhappy boy, that you should be led away to paint one of your classical haloes round the head of some such unfledged chicken, blessed with a fond and shabby father. Remember, young man, you have two things to look forward to that can set you up in this world—matrimony and expectations; expectations and matrimony—and don\'t forget that in my mind they are very closely connected."

"Don\'t be angry, my dear uncle, and don\'t worry till there is cause. As for the \'dot,\' I suppose I could do with 100,000 francs as well as any other fellow who has got to take a bel appartement orné de glaces, and to put himself into his furniture. But surely you, who know the value of skins, you wouldn\'t want me to sell mine, with what is inside in the way of body and soul, for that price!"

"See that you get 200,000 then, or three or four; you\'re worth all that. Lady-love, indeed! so beautiful, I suppose! Sentiment—romance—eternal love! Eternal fudge! Remember this, Uncle Auguste\'s fortune was not made to encourage tomfoolery."

Now there was really no reason why Uncle Auguste should deliver himself of that speech. There was no lady-love, no classical halo, and no centime-grabbing father. But the fact was, the uncle trembled lest he should be disappointed in the boy he loved so well. He was already scheming for him, and telling one or two friends of his confidentially, that it was quite worth while treating Claude with respect, as he was the nephew of a very rich uncle. It was not to be long before the uncle was deemed well worthy of respect, as being able to boast of a very clever nephew.

Whilst he was still painting studies at the Atelier Gleyre, and attending classes and lectures at the école des Beaux Arts, Claude started a picture in a queer little studio he had taken for the purpose, at the top of a very tall house in the Rue de Seine, Quartier Latin. Somebody, with an eye to artistic possibilities, must have converted what was originally a garret into a studio by adding a big projecting window. It had a top light into which all the prying cats of the neighbourhood used to peer, whilst the less inquisitive ones merely made the loose tiles rattle as they prowled along the roof.

There was a second studio of the same kind up there, which was occupied by Giacomo Irmanno, an Italian boy of about seventeen years, with jet-black curly hair. That peculiar underglow of rich bronze colour, so characteristic of the Southern type, lit up Irmanno\'s perfectly chiselled features. Dupont and I made great friends with him, and I often enjoyed helping him with his work. He could be very morose and look Italian daggers, but that was probably because in his desire to become an artist he was waging war at fearful odds against poverty. He was quite out of his element under northern skies, and spoke French in a way that taught me much Italian.

His only means of support were derived from painting what is called "Les Stations de la Croix." These pictures, destined to decorate the village churches in France and generally in Catholic countries, are produced in a more matter-of-fact than artistic way. The employer with an eye to the advantages of division of labour, has the subjects printed on canvas. Then a batch of Station No. 1, perhaps some six or eight canvases at a time, are given out to artist No. 1, who puts in the landscape and surroundings; from there they go to artist No. 2, who paints the draperies, and finally to No. 3, who fills in heads, hands, and feet. Irmanno was No. 2. We placed the pictures ready for treatment all round the room. Then we started with one colour, say dark red, for the shade of a certain drapery; when that had been repeated on all the canvases, came the turn of the middle tint, and finally of the light red. Then came the next colour—I need not say they were all prescribed—and when we had made the round with that, the next, and so on until all the draperies were satisfactorily disposed of.

The proceedings were only varied when Irmanno lay down on the red brick floor and groaned, and pretended to have a sort of attack. I did not mind, because when the evil spirit was upon him, he always looked particularly interesting.

Next door, in the twin garret, Dupont was putting heart and soul into the production of his first picture; it was still in its initial stages, but studies small and large, in pencil and in chalks, were gradually covering the walls. His subject was "The raising of the daughter of Jairus," and he would never tire of talking to me about the grand opportunities it afforded to the artist. He would question me too on things connected with mesmerism (I was mesmerising in those days), and would want to know all about the first symptoms of awaking from a trance, of the action of the hand as it makes passes, and the dictates of the eye as it bids the subject sleep or wake. "Christ, the God," he wrote to me in a letter of a later date, "can never be depicted, translated into human forms, but Christ the Healer, Christ the Helper, and He, the lover of children, is perhaps approachable. Give me a lifetime, and possibly I may decipher a little of what is to be read between the lines of the New Testament."

The summer had set in early and rather savagely, as it will do sometimes in Paris, and the heat in those ex-garrets of the Rue de Seine was stifling.

Rosa Bonheur Sinel did what she could to mitigate the evil. Rosa Sinel was her real name, but somebody had nicknamed her Rosa Bonheur, and in course of time her father had worked himself into the belief that the great artist had been her godmother. She was a precocious little woman, somewhere between the age of ten and fifteen—who can tell the real age of a Parisian child? Le père Sinel was one of the best known models in Paris. He was a living écorché, a creature designed for the study of anatomy, for he had a most extraordinary faculty of showing the action of any and every muscle; in fact he could, if the circumstances required, give himself the appearance of having been skinned, scalped, or flayed alive. He was ever boasting of his participation in the great pictorial and plastic works that had made a mark in his days, and always claiming his full share of the laurels awarded to them.

"It is not so much my exceptional figure that has inspired my friends, as it is my experience that has guided them," he told us. "Did not the great Monsieur Delacroix say with his characteristic modesty, when his plafond in the Galerie d\'Apollon was uncovered: \'Where should I be without the assistance of my friend Sinel?\' Oui, messieurs, he was right, and such a plafond is not produced in a day. \'Art is short and sittings are long,\' as the poet says; Voyez, Monsieur Ingres! Many an hour was I nailed to the cross as a thief, before we could get the true agony. I well remember his saying \'Sinel, mon ami, till I knew you, I had no idea what the flexor of a third and fourth toe could do, nor did I know what acting was till I heard you.\'"

"Allons donc, blagueur"—from the students—"what do you know about acting?"

"Moderate your language if you please, messieurs. You would not laugh if you knew the position I hold in the theatrical world—" With much dignity—"I am of the Théatre Fran?ais."

"Shut up, tais toi" cries one.

"To be sure you play the fool," shouts another.

"Il n\'y a pas de tais toi, messieurs; but I must be off and study my part. To-night I am on with Mademoiselle Rachel. I am cast for \'Le peuple murmure.\'"

To return to the daughter, I must say she was the most useful little studio drudge I ever knew. Her appearance was against her, for she was plain and generally unkempt and untidy; the cleanest parts of her apron were the holes, but for all that she was an ever-handy little monkey of all work. She would roast chestnuts on the stove according to her own particular system, and would feed that stove with heterogeneous fuel that it would not have taken from another hand. She would water the garden—a sort of shelf suspended outside the window—would drench unsuspecting but indiscreet cats, and was generally of an aquatic turn of mind. One very hot day we came upon her unexpectedly, and found her perched upon a high stool, her dress tucked up, and her bare feet on the chair rail. She was contemplating with evident satisfaction what she called le réservoir. It looked very much as if she had been utilising it as a footbath, by way of refreshing herself, but that may or may not have been the case. There was an empty pail that told the story of the reservoir. She had sprinkled part of its contents over the studio floor, forming a quantity of little quivering black pearls, as the water licked up the dust; the rest she reserved to make a pool where the hand of time, or the foot rather, had produced a deep hollow in the red brick floor. The cement of time must have been at work too, to weld the bricks into a compact mass, for the water did not seem to percolate through to the neighbour\'s ceiling, but stood its ground to bear witness to Rosa Bonheur\'s aquatic genius.

After this success she had visions of gold-fish and fountains and of les grandes eaux de Versailles, and she wanted more snubbing than ever.

But water or no water, the heat in the studio remained intolerable. It soon began to tell on Claude, who was not of the most robust, and who was simply overworking himself. He did not like being told so—artists never do; he had got into difficulties with his picture, and now that it was in distress he would not leave it.

It really needs as much patience and perseverance to mature a picture as to rear a child. All goes smoothly for a while, and one\'s offspring, picture or baby, is a source of happiness. Then comes a hitch, an illness, and everything seems darkness. But just as a father does not give in and say, "Oh, this baby is no use, pitch it aside," so a true picture parent does not gash the canvas of his own painting with a knife, or cast it away because it has the scarlet or yellow fever, or because it tells of a crooked leg or a deformed limb. On the contrary, he sets to work and tends the patient with soothing oils, and with the whole arsenal of remedies his palette affords. Wonderful are the cures that have been effected on canvas, and little does the public know, when it admires the completed work, how desperately the artist has had to struggle at times to preserve even a spark of vitality in it, and how narrowly it escaped destruction at his hands.

Claude had got into a phase of despair. Several studies he had made lately, especially some for the head of the daughter of Jairus, he considered absolute failures.

"Those blessed models," he said, "drive me wild. The rubbish that girl talks whilst I am trying to raise her from the dead, would make a saint swear."

It took a good deal of persuasion to get him away from the studio and the models, but luckily an opportunity for a rest came, when his father had to make an official inspection of some works in the neighbourhood of Lyons and wished Claude to accompany him.

The short holiday that he thus had to submit to would have proved rather dull and uneventful, had it not been for an incident that made a great impression on him. In his rambles through the city of Lyons he had come across a fine old building, the gates of which stood hospitably open; the door too, for, having crossed the picturesque courtyard, at one time probably a cloister, there was nothing to prevent his entering the main building, and he soon found himself wandering along the corridors of the City Hospital. He seems at first to have chatted cheerfully with some of the patients, amusing and encouraging them in his pleasant way; but presently, as he passed from ward to ward, and witnessed the acute sufferings of some of the sick, and the dull hopelessness of the incurables, he gradually felt his strength failing him. The long rows of beds began to revolve around him; he mechanically clutched hold of something and—fainted.

So much of the incident he mentioned in a letter to me; as also that he was going daily to the hospital to make some drawings, but the more interesting features of his adventure I did not gather till a week or two later, when we met in Orléans, which place was to be the starting-point for a pedestrian tour we had planned. There he gave me full particulars.

"I felt it coming," he said; "the rail of the bedstead nearest at hand seemed to be going round like a wheel, and I had to wait till it was within reach to catch it. What happened then I don\'t know. I suppose the good sisters helped me to a seat and watered me till I came round. All I can say is, that there must have been a long interval between getting out of the faint and back to life. It was a curious experience, and one I shall not easily forget. The first thing I became conscious of, was that my eyes were riveted on the lifeless body of a girl laid out on a bed, and covered with a spotless shroud; I thought it was of marble. I saw no one else, and wondered that there was no relative or friend to watch by the corpse; then it occurred to me that they must all have gone to break the news to Jairus. I sat gazing at the girl\'s large eyelids that lay heavily on the eyes but were not quite closed; at the wax-like features, so beautifully chiselled; and the lock of brown hair, the only living texture, in striking contrast with the cold sculptured pillow and with the stiff rigid fingers that rested on the border of the shroud.

"I felt very tired and leant back, wondering what the colour of her eyes might be. Then—was I dreaming?—I suddenly became aware that they were violet, like the colour of a transparent amethyst. She had opened them, and was looking quietly and unconcernedly at me.

"\'J\'ai bien dormi,\' she said, and I, at one bound, leaped back to life and its realities.

"\'Tiens, oui,\' I said, \'you look all the better for it. Now what have you been dreaming about, if I may ask?\'

"\'Oh, about the bon Jésus: I love to dream of Him, it makes me so strong.\'

"\'And what is your name, mon enfant?\'

"\'Madeleine, monsieur.\'

"I was truly glad to know, for I always regretted the apostle had not told us the name of the daughter of Jairus. Well, I got Madeleine to tell me a little of her history, and the good sisters gave me the rest. Her father was a poor labourer, and she had been in the hospital for the last nine months under treatment for hip disease. She was the sweetest and most lovable of patients, they told me.

"When I went away I said:—

"\'Is there anything you want? Shall I bring you a book when I come to-morrow?\'

"\'No, not a book; bring me a rose, please, a red rose.\'

"Well, you can fancy I thought of nothing else but the Jairus\'s daughter I had found. The next morning I brought her three of the reddest roses I could find, and she beamed with happiness as she fondled them.

"\'Oh, ma s[oe]ur,\' she said to the nurse, \'you will let me keep them just here by my side; they smell so sweet, and they can\'t hurt me now the windows are all open. I want to nurse them myself, and when they are tired of living in a glass, I will keep them between the leaves of my prayer-book,\' and presently she added: \'I am going to read them all day. You know, monsieur, I can\'t read really; that\'s why I didn\'t want you to bring me a book.\'"

Here I interrupted Claude with the question—

"How old is she?"

"How old? Well, really it never occurred to me to ask her age. I suppose it\'s a sort of grown-up age, but then, to be sure, she is quite a child, poor little thing."

And so on, and so on. Every morning he brought a fresh red rose for the pale girl. Sub rosa, to be sure, was the sketch-book. Now that he had found his long-sought model, he was glowing with the desire to make studies from her, and so he spent the better part of a week by her bedside, pencil in hand. The drawings I thought by far the best things I had ever seen of his; especially one in which he had used a few coloured chalks, and where the amethyst eyes gazed at you wonderingly. I have since sometimes been reminded of those eyes in the work of Gabriel Max.

* * * * * *

We had met in Orleans as I have said, and started on our walking tour in a southerly direction along the banks of the Loire. We were most unconventionally equipped, wearing caps and blouses, and carrying only the artist\'s knapsacks with a change of clothes and sketch-books.

What can be more glorious than walking, if you have the right boots to tread along in, and the right friend by your side? It was perfect. The river flowed with a will, the birds sang with a soul, and we could not but catch the note and go forward in unison with stream and song. We were in such high spirits that we found it hard to pass a man without hurling a cordial bon jour or a thundering bad joke at him. We helped old women with their bundles, and pauperised small children by giving them sous when they never dreamt of asking for such a thing.

Thus we pushed on, till we reached a town, not the first day, but another. What town I have forgotten; nor do I remember what art treasures may have been accumulated within its walls. I only know that our sketch-books were out, and that we had found a corner of the market-place, from which we could, without being too much noticed, catch the characteristic figures that were buying and selling, sitting, standing, or hanging about.

We had been working some time, when a friendly native of the fair sex, who had evidently taken a discreet interest in our work, requested us, with profuse apologies for the interruption, to give her a few minutes\' interview at her shop, as soon as we should have finished.

"It is just over the way," she said; "\'Leroux, Smith and Carriage Varnisher,\' is written over the door."

In due time we went, and Madame Leroux asked us with some trepidation what might be our charge for a portrait of her little girl. Dupont was at once fully up to the situation, and said—

"Ah, madame, it is not quite easy to give you a direct answer. Charges, you see, vary a good deal according to the style. There is the guaranteed likeness at one price, and there is the family likeness at another, considerably lower to be sure; that again fluctuating according to the amount of chiaroscuro the client desires introduced. What shall we say, my friend?" he asked, turning to me. I started a consultation on the subject in gibberish, to which he readily responded in the same tongue. She was much impressed by our mastery over the strange idiom, and exclaimed admiringly—

"Ah, messieurs, anybody could see you were English."

Returning to business, Dupont further explained—

"It is, above all, the colouring, madame, that makes the difference in price. We can do you a drawing—of the first-class quality to be sure—for two francs twenty-five centimes; coloured, madame, it cannot be produced for less than three francs seventy-five centimes."

It was her turn to consider and mentally to review the means at her disposal for art purposes.

"Well, messieurs," she finally decided, "will you please do the drawing part, and"—pointing to the pots and pans on the shelf—"my husband will lay on the colours."

The little girl was pretty, and we had got our full enjoyment out of the joke, so we set to, Dupont drawing her, and I doing the painting, and finally we presented our joint work as a free gift to Madame Leroux. She was deeply grateful, but looked just a trifle alarmed. Were we princes in disguise, she was wondering, or had she been harbouring peripatetic angels unawares? But she only pressed our hands and said—

"Believe me, Messieurs, I felt it, I knew it from the first, that you were English."

I only hope that Monsieur Leroux, when he came home, was pleased with our performance, and satisfied in his mind that I had given the full amount of colour necessary to constitute a complete work of art.

Leaving the city, we shortly had an opportunity of testing our abilities by the attractions they might possess for the rustic population of France. It was in a charming little place, somewhere not far from Blois, an idyllic spot and a very haven of rest, I should think, in times of peace; but just now it was invaded by a large contingent of visitors, attracted by the holding of the annual fair and of a cattle-market. In ordinary times, I daresay the approaching traveller would have been greeted by the silvery voice of the village church-bell, and the peasants working in the fields would have doffed their caps à la Jean Fran?ois Millet as the Angelus called them to prayer. But we only heard the discordant voices of man and beast, as they rose from the market and the fair, and the devout peasants had left the fields to bow their heads reverently somewhere nearer the centre of festivities.

We found but poor accommodation at the crowded inn, but had learnt by this time not to be particular, and to put up with a bundle of straw for a mattress, and the back of a chair turned upside down for a pillow.

I had left Claude making some studies of oxen that might perhaps some day, under his brush, figure as a background to a sacred subject, and I had sauntered on to the fair. There, having pulled out my sketch-book, I soon became a centre of attraction. An artist was evidently a strange figure in this primitive place, and so a little crowd collected to watch one of the species use his tools. It was on this occasion that I had an opportunity of realising a truth which I have subsequently so often found confirmed—viz., that there are occasions when I am wanted, and others when I am not wanted. In that particular place I was not wanted. So the boss of a theatrical show, close to whose booth I had taken my stand, told me. He put it in the most courteous language. With me it did not mean business, he could see that. With him it did, and his business was suffering from the unwonted attraction I offered. I at once closed my sketch-book, and he improved the occasion by announcing his performance in stentorian voice to my crowd. It was something about the Assassin\'s Coffin and the Haunted Wreck—grand drama in so many acts and so many more tableaux, performed by his troupe in all the capitals of Europe.

"Entrez, messieurs! on va commencer. Deux sous l\'entrée!" and he was up on his platform, prodding a monkey with a long thin stick, and banging on a drum with a short thick one.

I was moving on, when a lady, also gifted with an eye to business, addressed me, this time to tell me that I was wanted.

"You will be here this evening, will you not?" she said. "Would you mind coming and doing some of your drawing in front of my booth; you would attract the people, and once they are there, leave me alone for the rest." I agreed, and in the evening Claude and I started operations. She had placed a bench in front of her booth, which was well lit by a couple of large lamps. Claude was in his element. He harangued the open-mouthed villagers in his best manner. Our connection with the court, he explained, generally made it impossible for us to accept any engagements outside Paris, but, hearing that the good lady who presided over the classical game of Loto had the misfortune to be a widow and an orphan, we had felt it our duty to give her the advantage of our presence on this occasion.

"Yes, gentlemen," he added, "not only has she put before you a most remarkable collection of valuable articles, specimens of which the lucky card-holder may carry home to the wife of his bosom or the child of his headache, but the purchaser of the series of five cards is entitled to have his portrait executed in the latest and most approved style, by your humble servant, and his friend and colleague. Deux sous la carte, messieurs; deux sous la carte!"

We did a good stroke of business for the enterprising widow, and at the same time carried off some first-rate types in our sketch-books. For we placed our models in the centre of the bench, and each of us drew a profile from his side. Of the two sketches, we gave one away and kept the other. The people were refreshingly ignorant; a scrap of conversation between two old women was specially edifying. They were comparing notes after having watched our work from both ends of the bench.

"Well, you see," said one, "there are two of them—they each make half; then they put it together, and that makes one."

"Sure enough, that\'s just the way it\'s done," answered the other.

It was on leaving this place that we unexpectedly found ourselves "wanted" by the rural police.

We were trudging along, when we met two gensdarmes on horseback. They pulled up and asked us rather gruffly for our passports. Dupont handed them his, which was of the regulation pattern and therefore easily passed muster; but mine was a British Foreign Office passport, neatly bound in a leather case and signed by Lord Clarendon, and as I produced it from beneath a time-worn French workman\'s blouse, it seemed, to say the least of it, out of keeping with my appearance. It was very explicit, setting forth that: "We, George William Frederick, Earl of Clarendon, Baron Hyde of Hindon, Peer of &c. &c., request and require in the name of Her Majesty, &c. &c. &c." But the gensdarmes looked in vain for the signalement, the personal description of the bearer, which they considered the very essence of a respectable passport; and so they refused to "allow me to pass freely without let or hindrance." (You see I have the old friend of a document still, and am quoting from it.) In fact they invited us to follow them to the town we had started from in the morning. To this we demurred, and it was not without some difficulty that we persuaded them to run us in in the other direction, only succeeding when Dupont said he had an uncle in the gensdarmerie, who had often told him that the men were so badly paid, that they could not make both ends meet, were it not for an occasional tip from those interested in securing their good offices.

In due time we were marched into a pleasant little town—I forget its name—our captors following close on our heels. We were taken to headquarters and detained, as nobody there could make head or tail of Baron Hyde of Hindon\'s rescript. It was taken to Monsieur le Maire, before whom we were shortly summoned to appear. He received us courteously.

"I have no doubt, monsieur," he said to me, "that the passport is in perfect order, but I should like to see your signature and any other papers you may have about you that may establish your identity." I produced a washing bill, and the last letter I had received from my father. He looked at these and then selected a thick-set volume from the bookcase. "Mo-sche-les," he said, as he turned over the pages, evidently to assure himself whether my name figured in the register of criminals. Then, turning an inquisitorial eye on me, he sat down to cross-question me, his fingers all the while beating a little bureaucratic tattoo on his knees. I felt as innocent as ever I had felt in my life, and strong in my reliance on Baron Hyde and the British fleet.

"So you are an Englishman?" he asked. "And where was your father born?" "In Prague," I answered. "Quite right," he said, with a glance at the book; "in Prague, in 1794. You are the man;" and before I could say anything, he had got up, and calling to a young lady in the next room, he said, "Just come here, my dear, and look. This is Moscheles\' handwriting. Is it not a curious coincidence, just when you are studying the Rondo brillant and the Sonata? This is Monsieur Felix Moscheles, his son.—My daughter, Mademoiselle Julie, messieurs."

It was a very pleasant and timely coincidence. My blouse blushed, I suppose, but Mademoiselle Julie was too polite to notice it. Monsieur le Maire said—

"Well, as I have been officially called upon to find you a lodging, I may as well walk with you to the H?tel de la Poste, and see that you get a comfortable one. When you have rested, you must come round and take a little supper and music with us."

Our arrival, escorted by the gensdarmes, had caused considerable excitement amongst the natives; our reappearance under the wing of Monsieur le Maire, with whom we were evidently on terms of easy familiarity, at once dispelled all doubts as to our character, and not only were first impressions wiped out, but we took position as the recognised heroes of the day. Besides thus rehabilitating us, Monsieur le Maire profusely apologised for the gensdarmes\' blunder.

"The fact is," he said, "they have instructions to look out for two young men who are wanted, and who are supposed to be in the neighbourhood, so they are all on the alert." To which Dupont added—

"Yes, I quite see; if they just weed out all the wrong ones, they can then easily lay hands on the real culprits."

"Il y a de cela," said the Maire good-naturedly.

We spent a very pleasant evening with our friend and his family. The daughter played me the Rondo brillant and the Sonata, both early works of my father\'s that I was not quite as familiar with as I felt I must pretend to be. Dupont did a little pretending too, I think, for he got on splendidly with the mother by taking a lively interest in the pedigrees of the leading families in the neighbourhood.

Neither of us fell in love with the daughter, as one of us, if not both, should have done, to make a good story of it; nor, to the best of my knowledge, did Mademoiselle Julie lose her heart to either of us.

* * * * * *

Just one more little incident of the road, to close the record of our excursion. It would not be worth mentioning, had not the future given it significance.

It was towards evening; the sun had gone down behind one set of heavy clouds, and the wind was whipping up another set to join them. We were anxious to get on, and if possible to find a short cut to our destination, so we consulted a man who was mending the road. He had evidently not been talked to for some time, and wanted to make the most of his chance, for instead of a simple answer, he gave us a long yarn about his father\'s road and his brother\'s road, and about how his was so smooth we could play at billiards on it, but we couldn\'t on theirs. When we replied that we didn\'t want to play, but to walk it, he said we were only chaffing him. "I know you well," he added; "you are the two young men who are staying with Monsieur le Docteur."

We should have done better not to take our cue from this specimen of a billiard-table road-maker, for he misdirected us, and we must have got on to the father\'s road when we should have been on the brother\'s, or vice versa. And the rain came on and drenched us, and soon there was a good deal of big cloud-rolling above us, and enough of light-flashing to show us there was nothing worth seeing—no house, no shelter of any kind. But we didn\'t mind; we knew that in an orthodox thunderstorm a friendly beacon of light shining from the window of a cottage is sure, sooner or later, to come to the rescue of the belated traveller; and so we pushed on till we discerned its twinkle. Then we made for it.

We were soon being hospitably received by the three inmates of the friendly cottage—an old man, an old woman, and a dog in the prime of life. The old man made up the fire on the brick hearth for us to dry our clothes by, the woman stirred something that was simmering in the caldron, and the dog sat down and stared at Dupont. He was a beautiful shaggy creature, a sort of shepherd-dog, I think; they called him Rollo. His pedigree might perhaps not have passed muster, but for all that, one felt sure that his sire and his sire\'s spouse must have been good dogs. I have never forgotten the deep mysterious look in that creature\'s eyes.

There were some pigs, too, somewhere in immediate proximity to us, but more heard than seen, consigned as they were to a dark corner, where they lustily grunted, whilst some of their relatives, already dismembered, hung up inside the chimney-breast, to be gradually smoked and cured. The old woman fetched a saucepan, and put something in it that bubbled and fizzed, and presently one could see floating, quivering particles come together and solidify, and finally emerge in pancake form. Good solid pancakes they were, like counterpanes, not like those flimsy kid-glove sort of pancakes we get in society. We fully enjoyed them, and the coarse peasant\'s bread and the home-made cider.

Then we went to bed—to palliasse rather, for two big bags filled with straw were laid down for us, and we turned in, or rather on. Our hosts had made us as comfortable as they could, and we felt that all we could do in return was to sleep well and to forget a few francs on the table when we left. The old man was so kind; he knew from the first that we were itinerant painters, and that no discredit attached to our calling. "C\'est un métier comme un autre de faire des images,"[3] he said encouragingly. They were a cheerful couple, those two old people, and looked as if they had not known much trouble or worry, and had just collected their wrinkles, as time went on, for what they were worth.

One does sleep soundly on a bag of straw after a thunderstorm and a rustic supper, and I should have done so till sunrise if, some time in the middle of the night, Rollo had not poked his nose into my face. I woke up with a start, and looking round, was surprised to see Dupont standing at the window, gazing into space.

"What\'s the matter?" I said.

"Nothing," he answered. "It\'s a wonderful night."

I turned round to go to sleep again, but Rollo was very restless, and a glorious full moon was flooding the kitchen with light, her silver rays forming fantastic patterns on the stone floor, broken as they were by the little lead divisions of the casement and by the flower-pots, bottles, and various nondescript articles on the window-sill.

"I wish you would come to bed, and not stand there as if you were moon-struck," I said at last.

"That\'s just what I am," he replied. "I wish you would come and be so too."

"As-tu fini?" I growled. "Va te coucher, imbécile,"[4] and with that I dozed off.

But Rollo, I dreamed or I felt it, was sitting gravely by my side and wondering how I could be so rude, his tail all the while beating the ground at regular intervals. I roused myself once more; there stood Dupont as before.

"Hang it all," I said, "I do wish that blessed dog and you would shut up and turn in."

"I wish you\'d open up and turn out," he answered. "Come along, don\'t be an épicier;[5] get up and let\'s tramp it. It\'s a splendid night."

"What\'s the matter, messieurs?" here broke in the old man, whose head and nightcap appeared at the glass door which separated his sleeping-nook from the kitchen, and—"What\'s the matter?" echoed the wife\'s voice. When he saw Claude, he simply said, "Oh, c\'est ce jeune homme qui souffre de la lune; c\'est tout comme Rollo."[6]

I burst out laughing, and—I suppose lunacy is catching—I too felt that I could not lie still, and that a moon that could make that pattern on the floor was not the Philistine orb of the Boulevards, but a heavenly body well worth getting up for.

Soon we were on the move. Every cloud had vanished; Nature was in her most peaceful mood; all was at rest. We walked on, Dupont a little ahead of me, whilst Rollo, who had come with us, never budged from his side. We must have gone some miles when the moon, gradually descending towards the horizon, went down behind a potato-field. We sat on the banks of a ditch and watched it.

"A true circle," said Dupont, "a true circle!"

When it had quite disappeared, we went on. For a while Rollo stood staring after Dupont, then he started off at a slow trot in the direction of home, and was soon out of sight.

"Drole de chien cela,"[7] said I.

"C\'est égal, il a du flaire,"[8] rejoined Dupont. Beyond that he was not inclined for conversation, so I relapsed into silence.

And that is all. But I was to remember the moon of that night when once more Dupont and I sat together and watched "the true circle."

New-Year\'s Day in Paris is, as everybody knows, the most soul-foot-and-purse-stirring day of the year. Everybody has to conciliate everybody else. Emperors and kings move their oracular lips to dispel any "black specks" that may be visible on the horizon, and to proclaim the fact that, under their paternal guidance, everything is for the best in the best of States—winding up in all humility, with a filial appeal to the Father of all, and praying that He may devote Himself specially to the interests of His chosen people.

The telegraph boys rush from the palace to the office, and soon the high-priests of the Press trumpet forth the words of the mighty, and explain their oracular utterances to the gaping crowd that stands ready, all the world over, to be gulled, and is ever proud to wear some master\'s livery and be crushed under the glorious weight of the fetters he forges.

Sometimes the first day of God\'s new year is specially selected to accentuate the Divine Right of Temporal power enthroned on earth. With breathless expectation we await a sign—it comes—Jupiter has not deigned to wink, or worse still, Jupiter has frowned; he should have turned to the left, and he turned to the right, or—ye other gods protect us!—he did not turn at all! Then suddenly there is a great commotion in the human ant-hill. It is Neptune\'s ambassador who has been slighted! The courtiers stand aghast, the High Press priests shriek prophetically, and spill vicious inks all over their papers. Vulcan with his big bellows fans the ever-glowing embers of distrust, just to oblige his noble friend Mars, who looks forward to glorious work and fresh laurels. A howling mob of human ants breaks out into rabid patriotism, and calls upon the State to lead its armies, and on the Church to bless its banners.

To be sure Neptune at once calls for an unlimited credit, to satisfy the ever-neglected claims of the Panic Fund. Up go some things, by leaps and bounds; down go others; bears and bulls hug and gore one another to death, the dogs of war strain on their leashes, whilst the devout ant sets to, and works with a will for six days in the week to fill the arsenals, and then spends the seventh solemnly invoking the aid and the blessings of the Prince of Peace.

How petty the little incidents I can record appear when compared to the fratricidal aspirations of the faithful! Yet I must return to my own little lambs. I had only mentioned New-Year\'s Day to speak of cards and letters exchanged, and of the tribute of sweets to the sweet, and of tips to the tipsters. All that to tell of a particular letter Claude received on that day. The address was in his own handwriting on an envelope which he had left the summer before with Madeleine.

"When you can write, you let me know," he had said. "The good Sisters have promised me to teach you." And here was the letter:—

"Monsieur,—I have learnt to write now, and I am so happy because I can write to you. I have prayed to the Bon Jésus to give you health and all happiness in the new year. And I am still in the hospital, and the sisters are so good to me.—Your grateful

Madeleine."

To be sure he answered, and that most cordially and sympathetically, and at the same time he wrote to the économe, the Secretary of the Hospital, asking for information concerning her health, and her prospects of recovery. He received in return full particulars both from the secretary and from the doctor who had been attending the case for the last fifteen months. Her life had been despaired of, nor was she yet out of danger; she would have to undergo another operation shortly. Further anxious inquiries from Dupont elicited bulletins stating that the operation had been successful, but that for some time afterwards the strength of the patient had been at its lowest ebb. She was improving, and the only thing that might eventually restore her to health would be to send her into the country, where pure air and careful tending might possibly effect a cure. Situated as she was, there seemed no prospect of her securing that advantage, so Dupont volunteered to defray the cost of placing her in a convalescent home, as soon as she could leave the hospital. The country air worked wonders, and, one thing leading to another, in due time he placed her in a school, a convent, where she was in every respect well taken care of, and where she still enjoyed the full benefit of healthy surroundings. Under these circumstances she made rapid progress, both physically and intellectually.

In the meanwhile Claude was busy all through the winter. After our return from the pedestrian tour he had set to work on the picture for which he had accumulated so many studies. It was original in more than one respect. He had selected a canvas of a peculiar shape, about twice as wide as it was high, but his composition seemed to fill the space allotted to it quite naturally and spontaneously.

His figures were half life-size; the main group, somewhat to the right, was enveloped in the haze of a mysterious chiaroscuro. On the extreme left, at the entrance to the primitive dwelling, the figures of three children stood out dark against the bright sky, a beautiful silhouette and true to nature, for he had taken it from life, noting it during a halt in a peasant\'s cottage near Orléans. He knew the text tells us that none but the apostles and the child\'s father and mother were allowed to follow the Master; but children were children all the world over, he said, and they might well have disregarded the command.

The picture was destined to remain on the easel for a long while, for whilst devoting much of his time to it, Claude continued his studies with unabated energy, attending lectures, making a series of elaborate anatomical drawings, and I fear, generally burning the artistic candle at both ends.

But towards the close of the winter, the picture, being very far advanced, Claude showed it to some friends whose opinion he valued. They were evidently much struck by his rendering of the subject.

Some very eulogistic remarks must have reached l\'oncle Auguste, for, on the strength of them, he resolved to visit the studio. He had hitherto not condescended to show any interest in his nephew\'s work, but, as others were speaking of it, he felt it desirable to be posted up to date.

It happened that when he called, Claude was out, but Rosa Bonheur Sinel was there, and at once took it upon herself to do the honours of the place and to expatiate on the beauties of the canvas.

"I sat for the foot of the daughter," she said; "she is supposed to have pushed off the drapery. You see, my big toe is fine; it is quite apart from the one next to it; there is room for three pieces of twenty sous between them. Sit down this side, so you don\'t get the varnish; now if you look through your hand, like that, you will see a large earthenware thing in the background. That\'s a big water-bottle; it\'s what they used before they were Christians. It has du style, you know, and keeps the water cool. Next week we shall get the frame, then you will see it plainer; and look at the figures; they are just what is wanted, and the draperies; monsieur never uses the mannequin, that\'s what makes them so natural; that\'s just how people look when somebody gets risen from the dead."

And so she went on, assisting Uncle Auguste in arriving at a due appreciation of the picture, and giving him points he used afterwards for the enlightenment of his friends. Looking round the studio, he said, more to himself than to the young lady who had taken him in hand—

"What a garret! Never saw anything like it! Why, there isn\'t a creature comfort in the place. I must really send him up some"——

"That you should," broke in Miss Rosa; "I know what he wants."

"And what may that be, Miss Saucebox?" he asked.

"Goldfish in a bowl, and a net with a handle," she said. "Four goldfish."

"Bosh!" said the tanner; "fiddlesticks!"

But this remarkable young person knew her own mind and would not take "Fiddlesticks" for an answer, and before many minutes had elapsed, she was escorting l\'oncle Auguste to a neighbouring shop, and superintending the purchase of a long-coveted bowl resplendent with gold-fish.

"They\'re just right," she said; "he will like something live, I know; he\'s tired of his models. They are all nowhere now, since he has had that girl, that daughter of Jairus. Oh yes, monsieur, I know all about it. She\'s a young person in Lyons, and he wants his father to send for her, and do I don\'t know what besides. But I don\'t want her here with her big staring eyes and her Sainte Nitouche airs."

L\'oncle Auguste raised his eyebrows in a way peculiar to himself. Who was this girl in Lyons? How was it that a man of his importance in the family should be reduced to picking up his information in this stray fashion?

Rosa was quick to read his thoughts, and saw her opportunity. Tossing her head so energetically, that the last hairpin gave way and those obstreperous red locks of hers came tumbling over her eyes, she said—

"It\'s no business of mine. Besides, I never speak of young ladies who write letters," and another shake of the locks emphasised her meaning.

That was all. It would have been infra dig. for l\'oncle to have cross-questioned her, so he said nothing, but his eyebrows went up a little higher, and remained there quite a while after the little female Iago had left the stage triumphantly minus hairpins, but plus goldfish.

I say stage advisedly, for Rosa was a consummate little actress, and as the père Sinel of the Théatre Fran?ais used to tell us, there was no doubt her talent was inherited from him.

The uncle went home in a reflective frame of mind. He could see no particular objection to some short-lived intrigue.

"A good-looking young fellow like Claude," he muttered to himself. "To be sure. We all know what\'s what—but that\'s not that, or his father would not know of it, or at least not be asked to bring her to Paris. There must be something more serious at the bottom of this. Petite guenon va! (You little she-monkey!)" and he growled as his thoughts reverted to Rosa; but being himself something of a bully, he rather appreciated her impudence. So when he later on related the gold-fish incident to some friends at his club, he wound up with his favourite phrase—

"Now mark my words, gentlemen" (he always insisted on having his words marked at the club), "mark my words, that girl will go far; and when she finds a comb to keep that crop of hair in order, she\'ll find a carriage and pair too."

As I have said before, the subject of matrimony, applied to his nephew, was of all others the one that the uncle was touchy about, and anything that threatened to delay or obstruct the ambitious plans he had formed for that nephew must be combated. He had more than once expounded the true principles of worldly wisdom to him, but had always been nonplussed by Claude\'s independent spirit and his ready wit, so he did not go straight off and make a scene; he must get at the truth though, but he must bide his time and watch his opportunity.

The facts of the case were simply these: There had been some question of finding Madeleine occupation in Paris, for it had become desirable that something should be done to give her the means of earning her own livelihood, and Miss Rosa, who had caught scraps of conversation between the father and son, had just put two and two together in her fanciful way, and had jumped to her own conclusions not complimentary to the Sainte Nitouche.

It so chanced that at the time Madeleine\'s future status was under consideration, I was able to visit Lyons, so I had at last an opportunity of seeing my friend\'s protégée. It had been arranged that I should meet her at the hospital in the économe\'s Office, and I was not a little anxious to see what she would be like. In the office I found Monsieur Tamiasse, a small man, seated at a disproportionately large table. I was struck, too, by the size of the fine old room, and somewhat overawed by its contents.

There was an air of systematic order and bureaucratic rule about it that did not fail to impress a frail Bohemian like myself; there were many books, boxes, and cases about, labelled, ticketed, and docketed, and I felt sure I was going to be placed in safe custody somewhere in a pigeon-hole, neatly linked to Claude, Madeleine, and the doctors. But Monsieur Tamiasse soon put me at my ease. He was a bright, genial little man, a first-class économe, wearing a second-class wig, and probably in receipt of a third-class salary. I was Monsieur Dupont\'s ambassador and plenipotentiary, and as such I was received with a warm welcome, and officially thanked for all that had been done for Madeleine. I could but return the compliment, for Monsieur Tamiasse had quite constituted himself her guardian, and had proved himself a most practical and useful friend, ever ready to smooth any little difficulties that came in her way. We soon got to the object of my visit, and talked over the next step to take in Madeleine\'s interest.

An extensive business in ecclesiastical embroideries is carried on in Lyons, and it had been suggested that she should enter an atelier de broderie. Claude had already expressed his approval, so nothing remained but to find a suitable opening for her. An excellent lady, who was at the head of such an atelier, was a personal friend of the économe\'s, and so all could be soon satisfactorily settled.

When our little consultation was at an end, Madeleine was called in. I was rather formally introduced to her, and to the Sister of Mercy who accompanied her; the latter one of those excellent S[oe]urs de Charité who devote their lives to the tending of the sick and helpless.

"You have been Madeleine\'s ministering angel, ma s[oe]ur," I said—"I am sure we are deeply grateful to you. N\'est ce pas, mademoiselle?" I added, turning to Madeleine.

"Ah oui, monsieur," she answered.

"And you are the good fairy who taught her to read and write," I went on, "and there again, I am sure we are very grateful to you. N\'est ce pas, mademoiselle?"

"Ah oui, monsieur," she once more answered.

She was decidedly shy, and only raised her eyes for a moment, by way of seeing those three words safe on their way.

The eyes were the amethyst eyes of the picture. I had at once recognised those, but in all else I found Madeleine quite different to what I had expected. In fact, at this, our first meeting, I was rather disappointed. Instead of the delicate poetical creature I had always fancied her, I found a strong and hearty girl, with fresh red lips and rather sunburnt cheeks, but without a suspicion of Biblical halo encircling the several coils of brown hair that were loosely wound around her head.

She, I think, was disappointed too in me. Whether, in her mind\'s eye, she had also pictured me surrounded by some sort of halo or blazing glory, I do not know. It is as likely as not, for Claude had mentioned me in his letters to her, and he was never impartial in his judgment when speaking or writing of his friends. And wisely too, I think, for whom can a man look to for partiality, if not to a friend? David and Jonathan, I feel sure, were not unbiassed in the estimate they formed of one another. But however pleasant it may be to find one\'s merits acknowledged and one\'s virtues extolled, it is decidedly a drawback when one is called upon to live up to the reputation that has preceded one. The Madeleines and others will seek in vain for the halo, and undoubtedly be disappointed.

The good sister took her leave, and Monsieur Tamiasse left me to have a tête-à-tête with Claude\'s protégée, whilst he at once wrote off to the lady embroideress who was to take charge of her. I had by this time quite realised that Madeleine and the daughter of Jairus were two very distinct persons, and that the former was none the less attractive for never having been called upon to cross and to re-cross the Styx. I had gone a step further, and looking at her with an artistic eye, I had even noticed that her eyelashes had considerably grown since the days when Claude drew the eyes à la Gabriel Max.

So far I did not seem to have hit on a good conversational opening. To be sure, if Madeleine had been an English girl, I might have made a remark about the weather and had a fair start; as it was I went on at random and said—

"I am so glad you liked that book I sent you." (It was Grimm\'s "Fairy Tales.") "You did like it, didn\'t you?"

"Oh yes, monsieur; so much I can\'t tell you."

"But do try to tell me. I so want to know why you liked it."

"Who could help liking it? It\'s all about the fairies and fairyland."

"Yes, mademoiselle, that is quite a wonderful world to peep into."

"It is wonderful. It\'s my world. Things happen there just as they happen to me."

"Well, I hope it was only the good fairies you had to do with."

"I don\'t know that, but they protected me from the bad ones. And they wouldn\'t let the dragon devour me, but nursed and cured me, and taught me to pray to the Sainte Vierge."

Here her ologies were becoming somewhat mixed, for she had evidently not attempted to settle in her mind what of gratitude to give unto Theos and what unto Mythos.

"It was one of the good ones, I suppose, that taught you to read and write?"

"Yes, that was Sister Louise whom you saw just now; she\'s as good a fairy as ever was. Ah, monsieur, you can\'t understand it, you can\'t realise what a wonderful thing it is to be able to read and write. You learnt it when you were a child and couldn\'t know; but I was quite a big girl and had made my first communion when I began to learn those wonderful signs that you can say everything with—everything you can possibly think of—and that make it possible to read anything anybody in the whole world ever thought of."

"Well, I am quite glad you told me. Now I can report to Monsieur Dupont that you are both well and happy."

"That you can; and tell Monsieur Claude that I am grateful to him for bringing me those three fairies. It was that morning, the second time he came—— But I am talking too much," she said, interrupting herself suddenly, "and that is rude. I hope you will excuse, monsieur."

"Excuse! Why, my dear child, I love to hear you talk about all that—I am devoted to Fairyland myself; it is quite the artist\'s home, you know, and I must tell you my experience of it presently; but first I am curious to know how he came to bring those good fairies to you. And three too; just like in the tales; everything always goes by threes."

"I never thought of that," she said reflectively, and then continued, once for all giving up the idea that talking much was rude. "I\'ve got them pressed between the leaves of my prayer-book. They were three beautiful red roses when he brought them; I never saw such three roses before. I turned them to the light and tried to make them happy whilst they were with me, but to be sure I knew I could not keep them alive long, so when they seemed ready to die, I put them in the book. They were under my pillow when I was very, very ill. I must have been bad, for one night the doctors thought I was going to die, and S[oe]ur Louise wouldn\'t let S[oe]ur Amélie take her turn to sit by me. But I knew I was not going to die; I even knew I was going to get quite well, because the three good roses told me so—I hope you won\'t laugh at me, monsieur, for calling a rose a fairy, but I——"

"Now really, mademoiselle, you couldn\'t for a moment imagine that I should be so matter-of-fact and heartless as to laugh."

"Well, what do you think of her, monsieur?" broke in Monsieur Tamiasse. "What does she look like now? There\'s her record in that third Division, Casier G, No. 721. There we have her from the first day when she was brought to us, to the day when we thought she was going to be carried away from us, and so on up to date. She is not a bad specimen of the sort we turn out at the Lyons City Hospital, is she? Not that we always succeed. We are beaten more than once by the grim old gentleman with the scythe. But we are always ready to fight him, and we manage sometimes to get hold of his hour-glass and turn it upside down. Well, to-morrow we hand this young lady over to my friend Mademoiselle Chevillard. She will be here at twelve o\'clock. Will you come and give your sanction to the transfer?"

"Certainly," I said, and took my leave.

And as I went home I thought the world was not so bad after all, with its Sisters of Charity, its bright, devoted little économe, and its Madeleine with her friends the fairies.

To-morrow came, and with it the transfer. I sanctioned it with all my heart, for Mademoiselle Chevillard at once struck me as just the person we could entrust our ward to. She and the économe were settling the business part of the transaction, and I turned to Madeleine and asked her whether she was pleased to learn the art of embroidery.

"Pleased!" she said, "why, it\'s the very thing I have always been longing for. That\'s just why I am going to get it. I told you that things happened to me as they do in the fairy tales. So my wish is to be fulfilled, and I\'m going to paint pictures like the one Monsieur le Curé showed me, all done with a needle."

I wanted to know more about Monsieur le Curé and the picture, and so she told me he was her great friend and instructor at the convent. He had one day taken her into the sacristy of his church, and there she had seen the most lovely piece of embroidery one could imagine. It was under glass and in a gold frame, and represented the Madonna surrounded by little lambs with silky curls; one of them she was fondly petting. Over her head two little angels were holding a large crown, all of intertwined gold threads, and at her feet l\'enfant Jésus was seated on the grass amongst flowers, every one of which was a combination of glossy silks and sparkling beads and spangles. I remember it all so well, for I am sure that girl taught me, if not to admire, at least to analyse the beauties of ecclesiastical embroidery.

By this time we had got quite confidential, and she said, "You were going to tell me about your fairyland."

So I told her that I too was one of those privileged creatures to whom all good things seemed to come without much waiting. I could not lay claim to a fairy godmother, but my godfather was quite a match for any good genius of either sex.

Yes, mademoiselle, every Thursday evening, as the clock struck half-past six, he would appear in a hallowed place called the "House of Robes."[9] There he stood, every inch a ruler, the centre figure in a group of loyal vassals, waiting for a sign from his hand—I see him now—He raises his magic wand; a great rite is about to be performed, and spell-bound we listen for the coming sounds. Then onwards, upwards he leads us, into realms of unfathomable mysteries, where Music rules supreme."

"Who was that, monsieur? I cannot follow you."

"A magician, Maddalena! He could conjure up to your vision the dream of a Midsummer night, and his were the Songs that needed no words. Now, he has left us for the very realms his fancy had created. When he arrived there, the gate was opened wide to admit him, and Elijah the prophet stood ready with St. Paul to receive him. No wonder you are mystified, my dear. I\'ll explain it all to you another time. I really only meant to tell you that his name was Felix, and that means happy, and with the name my good godfather gave me happiness. Yes, good things seem to come to me as they do to you. May it last! At any rate we will hold on to the fairies as long as we can, and if ever the wicked dragon crosses our paths, we will stand by one another, won\'t we?"

"Well, I can\'t do much," she said, "but I\'ll run a needle through him, if he means mischief."

And the offensive and defensive alliance thus ratified, we parted, each the richer for a new friend.

In my letters to Claude I gave very full particulars of my conversations with Madeleine, and of the practical result of my visit; in fact it is from these letters, now in my hands, that I have been largely quoting. More than a twelvemonth was to elapse before we met again, for I had left Paris to pursue my studies under Kaulbach in Munich. The numerous letters Claude wrote to me during the interval, mostly treat of the two subjects uppermost in his mind, art and love. As I once more read them over after many years, I am aware that the history of his loves really offers no very remarkable features, and I approach the subject with some diffidence on that account. But on the other hand I remember that we all like the old story that always assumes a new shape; we like it perhaps, because, in this wicked world of ours, hatred and evil influences so constantly cross our path, that we are always glad to turn aside when the opportunity offers, and to listen to tales of love and devotion. And there were gold and silver threads that ran through Claude\'s life, as they do through most people\'s.

He was very impressionable, but he never treated love lightly; he often would see beauty where I, for the life of me, saw no more than ordinary good looks; in fact his artistic temperament would lead him to evolve a perfect Venus or a paragon of virtue from very slender materials. But he was too honest, and too much of an idealist, to indulge in the popular pastime of flirtation. Love skirmishes he might be drawn into, but they were not of his seeking, and he usually remained on the defensive. The Venuses and Paragons might rule supreme for a while, but when—as would soon happen—they were found wanting in some of the perfections his imagination had endowed them with, his idol had to step off its pedestal. Nor was he particularly humbled when he had to acknowledge his mistake. He would often say that it was quite a different thing to be "amoureux d\'une femme," and to "aimer une femme"—to be in love with, or to love a woman. And then, dear old mystic that he was at the bottom of his heart, he would conjure up a "Vision of Love," as he called it, a vision to be "divined, not defined." Was he ever to marry and be happy? I often wondered.

When I arrived in Paris, I found Claude at the station, and we embraced in true continental fashion. I had been invited to stay with him and his father, and I was soon established under their hospitable roof.

The first twenty-four hours we slept little and talked much. I knew all about the picture and all about a new star in his horizon, Mademoiselle Jeanne, but what is all when it is crammed into the few pages of a letter? Very little as compared with what can be made of it in conversation.

Of the picture later on; first about the girl. Mademoiselle Jeanne was the daughter of the grand Roule; so we had called her father, for no better reason than that his charming residence was in the Faubourg du Roule.

He was one of the leading physicians in Paris, more particularly known by his writings, which treated of some pathological speciality, I forget which. Her mother was an Englishwoman. During a twenty years\' residence in Paris she had added to the sterling qualities of her race the graceful attributes of a Parisian. She was not only a charming hostess, but a woman of great literary attainments, and indeed she must have been more than that, an erudite scholar, if, as the world said, some of the best pages in the doctor\'s books came from her pen. He gave colour to the assertion, for by word and deed he showed that he held her and her judgment in the highest esteem. It was quite a pleasure to see this united couple together, a pleasure I often enjoyed, for during my first long stay in Paris I had been made quite at home in their house.

Jeanne, or, as her mother persisted in calling her, Jane, was about sixteen when I first knew her. She was reserved and diffident; happiest when allowed to remain unnoticed in the background, positively distressed when dragged into broad daylight, or obliged to take her share in gaieties. I soon discovered the cause of her shyness. She suffered from the consciousness that she had red hair; in fact that consciousness seemed to have sunk deep into her heart and mind, and to have made her morbidly sensitive.

In those days red hair evoked nothing but a pointed reference to carrots—that from the ill-natured; the good-natured would feel compassion for the poor girls who were thus afflicted. I wonder sometimes whether the red of those days was the same we admire now, whether those carrots of my youth can have been transformed into the lusciously lustrous locks of to-day. Were they formerly only under a cloud and crushed under the weight of unanimous condemnation? Could the molten gold have been hidden away, and the deep-toned brass notes silenced, and were they only waiting to be combed and coaxed to the front?—Well, the trials of the sandy-hair phase are over, and I, for one, am grateful to live in the Renaissance period, and to witness the triumph of woman\'s loveliest crown.

Poor Mademoiselle Jeanne did what she could to conceal the luxuriant crop Nature had given her. She wound it in tight coils round the back of her head, where at least she could not see it if she chanced to come across a looking-glass. She brushed it off her forehead with a determination to show as little as possible of it in front, and if a few spiteful stray hairs would not lie down with the rest, she cut them off, much to my distress, for, when talking to her, my eyes were always wandering to the little border of reddish stubble that remained, and I saw her see me seeing, and that made it awkward for both.

Her extreme sensitiveness no doubt originated in the unkind comments made upon her in her childhood. As she grew up, it seemed impossible to efface these early impressions. She had got it into her head that she was the ugly duckling, and neither parents nor friends could persuade her to the contrary. But she gradually accepted what she considered the inevitable, and at the time Claude appeared on the scene (I introduced him to the family) she had sufficiently overcome her shyness, to perform the duties of a young lady of eighteen in her mother\'s salon, without betraying how much she would have preferred keeping in the background. It was very characteristic of that young lady that, when she did emerge from the background, she would do so with a rush; whether she offered you a chair or a cup of tea, she came upon you unexpectedly, firing as it were, at close quarters, and retreating before you could capture her.

"I know I\'m a coward," she said to me one day when we were talking of heroes, "and it\'s just because I\'m a coward that there is no virtue I admire more than courage. If I were a man, I would, I could"——

There she stopped short, and left me to guess the rest. I often noticed that when her thoughts were about to come to the surface, she would get alarmed at her own boldness, and take refuge in some commonplace remark, or relapse into silence, leaving your curiosity ungratified as to what was really going on in her mind.

With Claude she was more at her ease than with any of the other young men that came to the house. This was not to be wondered at, for Claude, as I have said, was the sort of man who would inspire even little street girls with confidence. I don\'t think he ever made any comments on her hair, but perhaps his eye too sometimes rested unconsciously on the stubbles, and thus exercised its influence; certain it is that an influence was at work. The little refractory hairs that had been a source of so much trouble, were allowed to follow their natural bent, and began to wave and frizz. That was a symptom: others were to follow. One evening conversation had turned on skulls and brains, and the doctor had given us some interesting facts relating to the comparative sizes of the brains in man and in the inferior animals. Claude, who had made quite a special study of anatomy, took up the subject from the artistic point of view, and showed the relationship between brains and beauty.

"The great artists," he said, "have ever given due predominance to the cranium over the eyes, nose, and mouth. The receptacle of the brains must lord it over the representatives of the senses. That is, too, why they have made so much of the hair, using it to give full development to the upper part of the head. It\'s a most fascinating art, that of the hairdresser," he wound up, "and I sometimes feel that Anch\'io might have been Parruchiere! I think I missed my vocation!"

These observations of Claude\'s had a remarkable effect. The coils were loosened, a little at first, then by degrees more; and the material at hand, one could not help noticing, was being reconstructed after the style adopted by the immortal Venus of Milo. At that time Claude was but moderately interested in Jeanne, but, much as a gardener looks with satisfaction at the fresh shoots of a plant that seemed doomed, so he looked with pleasure on the rising waves which he knew had come at his bidding. His eyes had a way of indicating a little in advance what his lips were going to say; it was a case of light travelling faster than sound; so first came the twinkle and then the words. Jeanne got the full benefit of the approving twinkle, and was relieved when she found that it was not followed by a congratulatory speech. He only said—

"I see your brain is struggling for space," and then changed the subject.

It is surprising how symptoms have a way of begetting symptoms, and what striking effects they are apt to have on sensitive natures like Claude\'s. He became more and more of a gardener, and brought beneficent sunshine into the life of the budding flower.

On the 15th of August he and Jeanne were together at the Turkish Embassy. They were amongst the guests invited to witness the grand spectacle provided for the pleasure-seeking Parisian on that day, the Mi-Ao?t, as it is called. It was the great Napoleon\'s birthday, henceforth to be consecrated as the National Holiday. The newly founded Empire spared nothing to organise fêtes in general, and this one in particular, on the grandest scale. All the resources of the decorator\'s art had been brought to bear on the Champs Elysées, and with such success that no fields could have looked more Elysian. The sculptor had contributed colossal figures, the architect triumphal arches, and an untold number of lampions were suspended in festoons which reached in gradually ascending curves from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe de l\'étoile.

A grand review, a military pageant, such as only a Napoleon could call into existence, was once more to show an admiring universe the unrivalled superiority of the French army, when marshalled by the Emperor now representing the greatest of Cesarian dynasties.

The Parisian was overflowing with patriotic emotions; his heart beat fast and vibrated with legitimate pride, as drums and bugles summoned him to witness the glorious spectacle. From all sides the people were streaming towards the Place de la Concorde. There, to your left, if you turn your back on the Obelisk and the fountains, you see the garden of what was then the Turkish Embassy (now a club). It is considerably raised above the level of the Rue Boissy d\'Anglais on the one side, and the Avenue Gabrielle on the other. It was a point of vantage from which it must have been quite pleasant for the privileged beau-monde to look down on the struggling plebeian.

Jeanne and Claude had been walking up and down that garden absorbed in earnest conversation. He was bitterly opposed to these military pageants, and with the natural eloquence of conviction, he had been inveighing against the delusions of mankind that culminate in fratricidal warfare. He was particularly hard on Horace Vernet, that panegyrist of the piou-piou, as he called him.

"How can a man lower his art to the level of tunics and red breeches?" he asked. "He\'s at best a stump orator on canvas, using his brushes to tickle the national pride of the Frenchman! \'L\'Empire, c\'est la Paix,\' indeed! Does it look like it?"

"Well, so far it does," said Mademoiselle Jeanne. "Surely this is a peaceful fête. See how the people enjoy it."

"Yes, mademoiselle, poor blind deluded people! Look again, and fancy that man shot through the heart with a bullet, and that boy on his shoulders pinned to the wall with a bayonet."

"Oh, don\'t speak like that, Monsieur Claude; you know I\'m an abject coward. I should fly to the ends of the earth rather than face danger."

"You are right. I beg your pardon; I know I ought not to conjure up ugly visions, least of all before your eyes, Mademoiselle Jeanne."

"I dare say you think me very foolish, Monsieur Claude, but——"

"Not foolish, mademoiselle; on the contrary, I am grateful to you for pulling me up when I fly off at a tangent as I did just now."

"Yes, monsieur," she answered, "I know you are always indulgent. That is, I suppose, why I venture to pull you up, as you call it. You see, I can\'t always follow you, and I don\'t want to be left behind."

That was a long sentence for her.

Whilst the ambassador\'s guests had elbow-room and to spare, the crowd below got more and more densely packed; it had so far surged hither and thither to the accompaniment of good-natured jokes, banter and blague, but suddenly a cry of alarm was raised:—

"Nom d\'un nom, stand back! Pour l\'amour de Dieu, don\'t push; you\'ll crush the child! The woman is fainting. Keep her head up or she\'s lost!"

Those are terrible moments when a crowd first realises imminent danger, and the instinct of self-preservation overrides all fellow-feeling, shows no mercy, gives no quarter. Yes, indeed, keep your head up, or you are lost. In the garden above, the festive gathering was suddenly changed into a scene of confusion. The ladies shrieked, and one or two of them swooned in sheer sympathetic terror. Men thundered words of command to the crowd below, that were lost in a sea of noises. At the first indication of danger, Jeanne had darted away like an arrow into the house; Claude was to the front trying, but in vain, to reach the child that was being held up by a pair of strong arms. A few instants more and Jeanne was back, carrying a chair. Not a pin could drop to the ground that crowd covered, but the chair did, and, with its aid, the work of rescue began.

"Get another," she called to Claude, "that one will be broken up directly," and off she was again. Another minute and she appeared at a window overlooking the Rue Boissy d\'Anglais, brandishing the first thing she chanced to lay hands upon—a large Turkish sabre. The shy girl with the red hair, the abject coward, was transformed into a modern Jeanne d\'Arc, mowing the air with the curved blade of the Saracens; a curious picture, that arrested the attention of the crowd beneath, at a point some two hundred yards in the rear of the dangerous corner of the Avenue Gabrielle, thus holding in check for a moment the seething mass of people who were pressing forward, unconscious of the danger to life and limb they were creating.

"En arrière!" she cried. "On s\'écrase la bas! Barrez la rue!" An officer of the Gensdarmerie took in the situation. He backed his horse on the advancing crowd, orders were given to stop the influx from the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and a catastrophe was averted.

The story of the timely relief of those besieged garden walls rapidly spread amongst the guests, who were gradually recovering from their fright. The ladies had ceased shrieking, and had completed the elaborate process of swooning, and of being brought round by the polite attentions of the gentlemen; they were now extolling Jeanne\'s presence of mind.

"My dear," said one old lady, "without you they would have stormed the house, and with my wretched health, I should not have survived it."

"Yes," added her son-in-law, "single-handed she beat the rabble back. She ought to have the Legion d\'Honneur."

"Take me away," Jeanne said to Claude; "anywhere, into the house."

"Do you mind my stopping with you?" asked Claude, but not till they had settled on a many-cushioned divan in the coolest and quietest room of the Embassy.

"Do stop," she said, "to protect me from the rabble. I might not be able to beat it back single-handed."

Claude thought he had never seen her hair so beautifully untidy before.

"I am sure I said nothing; no, nothing. But I can\'t help fancying she thinks I said something, and that\'s what makes me miserable."

So Claude assured me as I closely cross-questioned him on the subject of that day\'s conversation. Something had happened since to make him revert to the many-cushioned divan with uneasiness. He had gone, much against his inclination, on a visit to his uncle\'s.

"I know it\'s a guet-apens, a trap," he had said to me. "The old story; he wants to marry me to some money-bag. Anyway, he\'s too late now; I\'m not in the market. For all that I wish I had Jeanne down there to help me beat off the enemy with her Turkish scimitar. Bother matrimony! Why must we always be thinking of it? As if loving and being loved wasn\'t heavenly enough by itself. And why must we always go a-hunting in so-called society? Don\'t you think we ought to stick to our Quartier Latin and take a spouse of our own Bohemian type, instead of pottering about in swell salons and falling in love with some fine lady who will expect a fellow to go about disguised as a gentleman for the rest of his natural life?"

Such were his sentiments before he started. Four days afterwards he returned in love with a beautiful woman, and quite disposed to make a gentleman, or even a fool, of himself for her sake.

I happened to know her. Her name was Olga Rabachot. Her father was a Pole, one of those ill-fated noblemen who died for their country, whose estates were sequestrated, and whose fortune went to swell the coffers of the Russian Treasury. The mother and daughter settled in Paris. I suppose they lived in a garret, and gave music lessons, after the style of good Polish refugees; but I really know nothing about it, and probably only derive my impressions from the circumstance that the mother sang and the daughter played one evening when I was introduced to them at the house of Hittorff, the famous architect of the Place de la Concorde. A short time afterwards it was rumoured that a Monsieur Rabachot, an elderly gentleman who had made a fortune in business, had become much attracted by the charms and graces of the mother, Madame Somethingiska. This proved to be true, but only inasmuch as he saw in her an eligible mother-in-law. We soon heard to our surprise that his hand and his fortune had been accepted by the daughter, the younger iska.

The curiously assorted couple enjoyed but a brief term of matrimonial bliss, or whatever else it may have been. Before a year had gone by, the wealthy manufacturer was suddenly struck down by heart disease, as he stood by the open grave of a friend. The incident made quite a sensation in Paris at the time.

It was the bereaved widow, then, that Claude met at his uncle\'s. The late husband had been on terms of close friendship with the tanner, and had appointed him one of the executors of his will. But all business connected with this had been settled nearly a twelvemonth ago, and now l\'oncle Auguste thought it about time to put his abilities in the matrimonial agency line to the test. So, as Claude had correctly guessed, he had prepared his little guet-apens.

With Claude it was love at first sight—that is, if we may apply the term love to what is begotten of intense admiration for the creature beauties of woman. She had eyes, so it seemed to me at least, that might rest when off duty, but would ever be on the alert where they could be used to advantage. Her mouth, I must say, was most attractive. The lips were carved, curved, and coloured to perfection, and I cannot recollect ever having seen any of their kind better fitted to be met by other lips. Her pallor was interesting, her hair jet black, and her manners fascinating; but for all that I could never have worshipped at her shrine. Not so Claude. He saw everything in her that a man sees when he is struck blind by the God of love.

As we walked home together, on his return from that first meeting, we talked it all over. When we got home we talked it all over again. First it was daytime; then came the night; then the day broke again, and we were still talking—always on that inexhaustible theme that, since articulate sound was created, has used up more language than all other themes put together.

It must have been thus, I feel confident, that Orestes and Pylades talked by the hour when one of them or both were in love, and so too all the O.\'s and P.\'s, and, for the matter of that, all the other initials of the alphabet, ranging from the Alpha to the Omega.

At first I was not sympathetically inclined, and put spokes into the wheels that were running away with Claude. After a while I merely tried to apply the brake, lest he should rush down hill too rapidly, but I finally found myself running and rolling along, doing my best to keep pace with him.

The fact is his enthusiasm was catching. He described that woman so vividly that, for the time being, I could not help seeing her as he painted her. To be sure the thousand and one little details that made up our conversation do not bear repetition. The facts that I elicited were these: At his uncle\'s bidding Claude came, Claude saw, and Claude was conquered. Was she conquered too? That was a question not easily answered. During the four days they were together she sometimes accepted his attentions very graciously; at other times she was anything but encouraging, and even showed so marked a preference for the uncle that it seemed as if the young widow had preserved a taste for elderly husbands. He, l\'oncle Auguste, inclined as he was under ordinary circumstances to lord it over friend and foe alike, was unmistakably cowed in the presence of the Polish fascinator. She not only showed interest in the tanner\'s work, but also fearlessly indulged in criticism; this more especially in reference to the ventilation of some of the workshops. That she should have selected this particular subject for her adverse comments rather surprised me, for I had been brought up in the belief that the Poles might ventilate their grievances, but not much else.

The subject led to a rather lively discussion between Madame Rabachot and Claude\'s uncle, she being of the very advanced opinion that a man, even if he only worked from ten to twelve hours a day in an enclosed space, was entitled to a fair amount of pure air, whereas the distinguished head of the concern, who was of the good old school, maintained that in his experience of many years\' standing he had always gone by the golden rule that the amount of fresh air provided for the workman should be in exact proportion to the wages he is paid. The fair advocate of man\'s rights, however, stood her ground so well that the unfortunate employer had to give way, and promise the desired reforms.

This episode made a great impression on Claude, as well it might. Perhaps, though, he went a little far, when he said she was a noble creature, the champion of the great cause of suffering humanity, and the like. To be sure the chief factor of her strength was the splendid gift she possessed of using her eyes.

I elicited that even whilst skirmishing with the uncle she always had at least one eye on the nephew; that one was evidently enough to hold him in subjection, for with it she had condescended to say many pleasant things that she did not deem it desirable to entrust to the indiscretions of the lips. Taking it all in all, I came to the conclusion that she was, to say the least of it, very much interested in Claude, but that, being of a kittenish disposition, she had coquetted with the uncle in the playful way so frequently practised by women when they look sweet upon one man with a view to quickening the pulses of another, whose affections they aspire to secure.

If Claude said he was miserable, it was not so much because it was yet an open question whether the young widow could reciprocate his feelings, but because the image of Jeanne stood between him and his new love. He knew that Jeanne was more than partial to him, and he felt that he had been slowly but surely drawn towards her.

How much or how little had he really shown the interest he took in her was the question that exercised his mind. Had he ever said anything that she could have construed into an acknowledgment of a deeper feeling than that of friendship, anything that would be at least morally binding? No, certainly not in words; but then, to be sure, much can be said without the use of spoken language. Of all the songs without words the love song is the most legible. Besides, the most harmless of words can make mischief if they are taken in connection with what has preceded. The statement that twice two makes four is innocent enough in itself, but it may, under given circumstances, be made to say that she has two eyes and so have you, and that, if she could only vouchsafe to see with your eyes as you see with hers, twice two in this particular case would make one.

Nor need you propound subtle solutions of arithmetical problems; you need but admire the humble cottage as you go across fields with her, if you want to commit yourself irrevocably, and so too, the mere mention of the moon has been enough to dispose of a man for life.

Claude may not have strictly avoided every opening of this kind, but I certainly do not think he had any cause for self-reproach. I felt sorry for Jeanne, for it was evident that, for some time to come at least, there was little prospect of her regaining whatever hold she might have had on him. There was nothing to be done in that direction; so we shelved Mademoiselle Jeanne sine die, and talked of the other one.

That other one had been particularly sympathetic in her appreciation of Claude\'s picture; it had at last been completed and sent to the Salon. On the varnishing day it was sold to a dealer for two thousand francs.

"That goes to the Madeleine fund," said Dupont, who was always planning great things for the girl\'s future.

"That goes to me," said the dealer, as he resold the picture and pocketed a profit of fifteen hundred francs.

The "Daughter of Jairus" could not fail to attract much attention. Original as it was in its composition, and independent in its conception of a religious subject, it led to much heated controversy in the leading papers of the day. In some of them the artist was lauded to the skies; in others, roundly abused. Those three poor dear little innocents standing at the open door of Jairus\'s house, more than any other incident in the picture, gave rise to brilliant argument, vigorously attacked as they were on the one hand, and heroically defended on the other.

Virtually the able art-critics were divided into two camps, from which they issued grandiloquent manifestoes, and passed judgment on art and artists, past, present, and future. I have not preserved cuttings from the papers, but I think I can give a pretty correct idea of the opposite views taken by those heaven-born wiseacres, the art-critics of the day, only apologising to them for my poor rendering of their doctrines.

"Monsieur Claude Dupont," said one set, "is a young man of great promise; he is a powerful draughtsman, and his gifts, if turned to account, may prove him to be a worthy champion of that severe and chaste school that gave us a Lesueur, an Ingres, and a Flandrin. Whilst prognosticating so bright a future to Monsieur Dupont, we feel, however, that we should not be doing our duty, if we did not warn him against the perverse influence that the apostles of the so-called Realistic school have already begun to exercise over his brush. We allude to the three children most unseemingly intruding on the grand scene that is being enacted in the house of sorrow. Let us hope that the danger that threatens the young artist may yet be averted, and that so much talent may be applied to perpetuate the traditions of a great past."

"Monsieur Claude Dupont," said the other camp, "has a great future before him, if he wisely utilises his gifts. We welcome in him a painter who, in his treatment of a religious subject, breaks with the traditions of an effete school. The introduction of those three children, peering with wondering eyes into the house of mysteries, we consider a stroke of genius. But for all that, the fetters forged by the past are still clinging to him. We heartily congratulate him on the step he has taken towards emancipation, but we would have him fully realise, that if he is to fulfil the brilliant promise of this his first picture, he must abjure once for all the errors and conventionalities of a school destined to perish at the hands of triumphant Realism."

These newspaper comments affected different people in different ways. Rosa Bonheur Sinel resented anything short of unqualified praise, and was simply indignant with one writer who had ventured to criticise the drapery she had sat for. The article commenting on the masterly drawing of her foot, she kept in a discarded hatbox with other treasures, prominent amongst which was a defunct goldfish preserved in a glass bottle.

Madeleine was supremely happy. She had seen a very sympathetic notice in the leading paper of Lyons.

"I am proud of the picture," she wrote to Claude, "and I can think of nothing else. I am sure I am quite glad I was so ill, if that helped you at all. The man who wrote the article was kind enough to say he liked the way I opened my eyes so much, that he was glad I had come to life again. I thought that rather flippant. Don\'t you think so, too? But then he described the whole picture so beautifully, that I fancied I could see it; he seemed to like it all, only he wanted some more \'impasto.\' What can that be? May I tell you about a dream I had? You know I am always having dreams; you won\'t mind, will you? It\'s quite short, and it is all about you. I saw you in a large looking-glass, but not all of you; only from your neck to your feet; I could not see your head. Besides, I should not have noticed it if it had been in the looking-glass; I could only look at your feet. You had those slippers on I embroidered for you last year, and I was so unhappy, because they were so ugly; so unhappy, that I woke up quite upset. And since then I\'ve been thinking, how could I ever have sent you such a stupid flower pattern, all so hard and stiff? I do feel ashamed of it now.

"Madame Chevillard is so kind. She says I am her daughter, and I feel as if I really were. In the evening I go up to her room, and she unlocks her treasure cupboard, and takes out something to show me and tell me about. She has got beautiful books, and she lets me read them to her; she sits in her big armchair and looks sweet, and she seems to know everything that is in the books. There is one that just tells all about the artists; there are lots of hard words in it, and one can only read a little of it at a time. Sometimes she laughs at me, because I say I should like to be an artist, too. I don\'t mean painting, but making some kind of thing beautifully.

"And often, when I read to her, I begin to wonder again how the thoughts get into the book, and I can get them out again.

"I ought to leave off writing, Madame Chevillard says, so adieu, Monsieur.—I am, your grateful friend,

"Madeleine.

"P.S.—Please throw away the slippers; do. I am making you a surprise, and madame says it is going to be a much better piece of work this time. I should so much like to tell you what it is, but then, to be sure, it would not be a surprise.

"How nice you have Monsieur Felix staying with you; he is good.

"I am glad your cough is better, but do take care of yourself."

Ah, yes! we all wished he would take care of himself; but, alas! that is just the thing he could not be induced to do. One would think that to be in love with one woman, and just out of love with another, would be fairly enough to occupy one man\'s mind; but it was not so with Claude. He was working in his studio, in museums and libraries, all day long, and of an evening he would study anatomy, as if he bad been qualifying for a doctor. Pictures seemed constantly coming to him, like so many mocking Will-o\'-the-wisps, flitting before his eyes when they were open, and twitting his worried brain when they were closed.

Madeleine\'s letters were always particularly quieting and soothing to him, and he used to say that, when he wanted a rest, he liked to sit down and write to her.

Not long after Claude\'s momentous visit to his uncle I had again to leave Paris. It was a wrench to part with him just when he needed a friend to help him through his joys and troubles, but duties of various kinds called me back to Munich, so there was nothing for it but to say good-bye. We felt it doubly, for we knew we were not to meet for some time. Write we should, to be sure, we were always good correspondents; and this time there was no need to assure one another that we should do so often.

I started from the Gare du Nord.

"Good-bye then, old fellow! Au revoir—adieu!"—lightly said, deeply felt.

I rolled on, thinking of Claude and Jeanne, the widow and Madeleine, till I got to my destination, my queer little studio in that ramshackle old house, Schützenstrause No. 5/3 links. The address is no use now, for that abode of mine is pulled down, as are its dear decrepit brothers and sisters, and the primitive old station opposite. All to make room for new buildings more suitable to tenants with sensitive noses and rectilinear tastes.

The first letter that reached me from Paris was not, as I expected, in Claude\'s handwriting, but in his father\'s. It told me that Claude was too ill to write. He was to have gone down to his uncle\'s on the Saturday (I had left on the Tuesday), and he was looking forward to what only a short time previously he had called a trap, a guet-apens, with the greatest impatience, for amongst other guests would be Olga Rabachot. But before the day came he caught a severe chill, and was peremptorily ordered to bed.

The fascinating widow he was never to see again. Not only the old cough had returned, but with it symptoms sufficiently grave to make it desirable he should winter abroad.

I had foreseen, and so has doubtless any one who has cared so far to follow Dupont on the love-path, that it was not he who would marry, the fascinating widow, but the uncle, and so I may as well state that such was the case. How it came about I either never knew or have forgotten, and as I should only be getting out of my depth if I attempted to fill the gap with scraps of fiction, I will confine myself to the simple narrative based on my recollections, and will merely add that I trust the uncle and the aunt lived happily ever after, and that the workmen at the dyer\'s works got as much ventilation as was procurable at that time and in that particular part of the world.

Claude soon left for Mentone. Then came my turn; was it sympathy or was it coincidence? About the same time I too was taken ill, and that seriously. The cause was not far to seek: a component part in the great scheme of creation is a certain vicious north-east wind that seems to live and thrive on annihilation. This Boreas is a kind of ogre who feeds not only on fat babies, but on any mortal thing that he can turn into dust. Not satisfied with his legitimate prey, the autumn leaves, he explores every nook and corner seeking whom he may devour. He found me out one evening after a day of unusual heat, as soon after sunset he suddenly came sweeping across the mountains that lie to the north-east of Munich. For months to come he laid me low, very low, and thus all the fine plans that Claude and I had made for a regular correspondence, that would keep us linked together at least mentally, came to naught. Letters dictated to the kind and anxious watchers by our respective bedsides were but poor substitutes for the minutely detailed accounts of our doings that we usually exchanged, or for the heartfelt effusions that our friendship prompted.

But to talk of one\'s illnesses is really a most unpardonable offence. For all the purposes of description one can find quite enough of weakness in man when he is strong and hearty, without going out of one\'s way to ransack the sick-room for further evidence of his frailty. So I will merely mention that I was and remained an invalid throughout the greater part of the ensuing winter.

The truth concerning Claude\'s health was kept from me. I since knew that he had passed through an alarming crisis; when the fever was at its height, his mind had been wandering, and in his disconnected talk he had alternately appealed to Olga in the tenderest language, and had shrunk from her imaginary presence with aversion and terror. When calm returned and comparative health, he would not speak of her. Something of the shrinking remained.

"With you I could talk about her," he said in the first letter he could write from Mentone, "but I must wait till I am stronger, and particularly till I hear better accounts of you. It was an unpleasant dream that—well—that Erlk?nig dream. Again and again I cried out: \'Mein Vater, mein Vater!\'—no help came—her voice pursued me—On we dashed fever-spurred, till I lay dead in her arms.

"But, to be sure that is all \'such stuff as dreams are made of.\' To you, my dear fellow, I should only send pleasant visions, like those I am revelling in here. A new world is every day unfolded before me, a world vibrating with light and glowing with colour. I have seen the woods and the hills and the waters before, but never in their gala uniform, and I am simply dazzled. Where are my beloved outlines? They seem merged in harmonies and swamped in colours so glorious, that even I lose sight of them. Do you know, my dear Felix, since I am here I feel there is in me the making of a colourist, a germ somewhere hidden away so far down, that perhaps it may never thrive and reach the surface, but a source of happiness it is to me all the same. When I get strong enough I am going to nurse the little stranger, and see whether I can coax him on to the canvas; but I shall do nothing till I have made careful drawings of a couple of hundred olive trees. Why, every trunk is a weird fantastic subject in itself, and every branch as it twists and writhes in titanic agonies. It is as if all the lines of the universe had taken the olive groves for their place of rendezvous.

"Literally so; for there as I sat wool-gathering the other day, I descried approaching me the unmistakable lines of Gobelot\'s hat, a direct descendant of the one we punished in the glorious old Gleyre days; and under the hat was the man himself, walking through life as placidly as ever. He has evidently not yet learnt to draw a foot, so he has not fitted himself for a bootmaker. Nor need he, for his father, who died not long ago, left him quite a little fortune, rien que cela! Amongst other properties he inherits a villa in the best part of Mentone, with a beautiful view on to the sea, and so many acres of land; the very olive tree I was sitting under belongs to him. He has come down here to take possession, and was glad to find in me some one whom he could talk to. The fact is, he wanted to unburden himself of a secret. He is in love. He is engaged; you will never guess to whom. Wait; don\'t look to the end. She was a young girl whom you knew before she was beautiful, as he assures me she is now. She always loved the theatre, and one day, it appears, she was irresistibly attracted by the bills that announced the performance of that lovely opera of Cherubini\'s, \'The Water-Carrier.\' That she must see. So she treated herself to a very good seat, and went off all by herself to witness for the first time in her life the performance of an opera. Then and there she was stage-struck, and swore by her illustrious godmother that she could and would be a singer. She asked some one to teach her, and wouldn\'t take \'No\' for an answer. She next asked some one to bring her out, and made him do so, and got the public to applaud into the bargain. I\'m not sure she didn\'t ask Gobelot to marry her; but so much is certain—he\'s going to, and we shall soon hear of Madame Gobelot, née Rosa Bonheur Sinel. Qu\'en dis tu? L\'oncle Auguste was right. Didn\'t we one day have to mark his words, \'When she gets a comb to keep that mop of hers in order, she\'ll find a carriage and pair too.\' Now she\'ll have it, and a good deal besides; and you can be sure she will be the Queen of the Regatta, and win all the prizes.

"I wish I had you here to tell you more, but I must break off, I am so tired.

Claude."

The generally cheerful tone of Claude\'s letters, as of some I received from his father about this time, was, as I know now, only adopted because I was considered far too unwell to be told the truth. In reality, Claude\'s condition gave cause for grave anxiety.

I was not a little surprised to learn that Madeleine was installed as Claude\'s nurse in Mentone. It was all the uncle\'s doing. He who had always resented the mention of her name—and it was often on Claude\'s lips—had been instrumental in bringing her to his side. The invalid was told that Madame Chevillard and Madeleine were on their way to Genoa, where the former had been appointed to superintend the formation of a school of embroidery. There was no truth in the story; it had only been concocted to explain their presence to Claude.

His uncle had himself gone to Lyons, and had induced Mademoiselle Chevillard to bring her ward to Mentone. How matters stood there he told them with tears in his eyes. They must come at once, and—— stop to the last.

A month had elapsed, and every day had brought Madeleine nearer to the friend she tended. Her long enforced stay in a hospital had naturally qualified her to nurse the sick; but it was not her experience alone, but her devotion to Claude, deep-rooted and untiring, that came to wrestle with the messenger of death. And the invalid who had been so restless, even so querulous, before her arrival, was now soothed by the mere sound of her voice, and as he looked into her amethyst eyes, an unknown happiness dawned upon him.

Thus I found him and her when I arrived. I had set out for Mentone as soon as I was strong enough to travel. It was in April; God\'s Nature was bright, but sad was the journey, sadder the meeting.

I was fully prepared to find my friend much changed, but when we met I had difficulty to conceal from him how shocked and distressed I was by his appearance. I could not but see that he was rapidly wasting away, a prey to that terrible disease, consumption. The matted hair clinging to the moist forehead, the pulses on the temples beneath marking life\'s ebb; the sunken cheek and the hollow soundless voice, all foreshadowed the approaching end. As I sat by his side and held his emaciated hand, I felt I had come none too soon.

Yet he sought to appear cheerful.

"Where are my birds, ma petite?" he asked Madeleine. "Give me the \'surprise.\' Look here, Felix, isn\'t she an artist?" he said, holding up the surprise; the same his petite had announced as being in preparation. It had taken the shape of an embroidered mat to put under his lamp.

Yes, she was an artist. Her subject was simple enough. Four birds representing the four seasons filled the corners of a grey silk square. There was the crow, the swallow, the nightingale—the fourth I forget; each beautifully modelled with many-shaded threads of silk, and linked together by a cleverly-contrived garland of flowers, appropriate to the seasons they were to illustrate. In the centre, entertwined with a bunch of evergreen, a ribbon, on which were embroidered the words—
"Les saisons qui changent
L\'amitié ne dérangent."

Yes, she was right. True friendship will not change with the seasons that come and go. But had she thought, as she plied the needle, of the friendship that ripens and grows, expanding till it is merged in affection of a deeper nature?

"Stop with me another ten minutes, then let me rest," Claude said, as we sat by the window, waiting for the moon to rise. "Perhaps I shall see it; or if not, I shall know it has risen."

"Where must I look for it?" I asked.

"Over those hills. It will hide behind the mists. Wait, to-morrow perhaps; Thursday—Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Wait."

He was exhausted; I would not let him speak more, but left him to rest, watched by the pale girl that was ever by his side.

The next day he seemed so much better that he surprised us all. Could it be possible that a crisis was passed, that the illness had taken a favourable turn? One dared not think so, but yet the balmy air of Mentone had ere this worked wonders.

"O Felix," he said, "I feel happier than I have ever been. Every day brings me new life and light. The world is more beautiful than I thought; not all drawing; colour too, such colour!" After a pause, he continued—

"I must tell you all, Felix. I was blind, and she—slowly, gradually—led me out of the darkness. I thought I knew what love was—Paris—you know—all passion, pain; love is peace, happiness. It is she who taught me. I have peered into the deepest of all mysteries, too great to be solved in this world." And he fell back on his cushions, and gazed as if in a trance, murmuring "Ma petite."

High winds had been blowing for the last few days, whipping up the waves of the blue sea and chasing the clouds across the path of the moon, but now nature was returning to its pleasanter mood, and the clouds were gradually dropping into line, and taking up positions just above the horizon.

Saturday had come.

"Good-night, father; good-night, uncle. I feel much better."

Madeleine and I remained. Vigils and anxiety had told upon her. The bloom had left her cheeks, and her eyes were heavy. We wheeled his chair to the window and propped him up with pillows.

"Over that hill," he said, "at 11.59;—curious—just a minute before midnight—I watched it grow ever since it was a tender crescent."

The full moon rose, a red disc, blood red, emerging from this world of strife; it ascended, taking its hues from man\'s yellow gold; then on—freed from terrestrial mists, excelsior to purer skies.

"See," he said, "a true circle; no beginning and no end. The emblem of eternity!"

Madeleine was resting her weary head on her arms as they lay folded on the window-sill. Silvery rays fell through the window and played around her hair.

"Hush! let her rest. Ma sainte! See now—that halo of light around her head—a vision." He spoke with an effort, but on that early Sunday morning he told me how deeply he loved Madeleine.

The sun rose once more on Claude; never again the moon. He was still sitting on that chair when his head dropped to move no more. We were all present. Madeleine knelt by his side and buried her face in the grey rug she had so often laid across his knees. She held his lifeless hand and wept in silent anguish until we led her away.

* * * * * *

Did she know, poor Madeleine, that she too had but a few years to live? that the germs of the unrelenting disease which had carried off her friend, her lover, were at work within her?

I was with her when she too closed her eyes,—so peacefully, serenely. It was a vision of love that passed away from amongst us.

"I am quite happy. You will lay me by his side?"

"Yes, Madeleine,—yes."

And now that I have said what I wanted to say about those friends of my early days, and followed them to the closing chapters of their lives, I ought perhaps at once to turn over a new leaf and record a fresh impression. But it is hard to dismiss memories which one has evoked. Why should one? Nothing in good old Nature is abrupt; the sun sets and day fades into night; in the rainbow yellow merges into green, and green into blue, and it seems but in keeping with the ways of Nature that there should be something to read between the lines of a slightly sketched life-story, and something to be thought out between heterogeneous chapters. They cannot but be varying if they are to depict the motley crowd of figures that go to make up one\'s own experiences. Such chapters are like the various pieces on the programme of a musical recital. There we are taken from a fugue to a notturno, from a grande valse to a moonshine sonata; and the pianist, if by some chance he happens to be a musician, leads us with a few improvised chords, from one mood to another, from flats to sharps, major to minor.

So then my starting-point is once more Dupont, and before I think of other friends, I find myself speculating as to what he might have achieved, and to what honours he might have attained, had he lived. What would he have thought of to-day, and what would to-day have thought of him? To be sure he would be wearing a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, as all distinguished Frenchmen do; and who is not distinguished? By this time he would have been an Academician, royal or national, a Membre de l\'Institut, perhaps even one of the forty "Immortals," if he had taken to the pen, as we know painters will sometimes do. In the eyes of the rising generation the Immortals mostly take rank with any other old fogeys, and Dupont would have fared no better than his contemporaries at the hands of the Nous avons changé tout cela\'s of the day.

It could not have been otherwise; for, alas! (and I have not sought to disguise it) he had none of their distinctive qualities. He never loved the un-beautiful for its own sake, nor was he a man of the prominent-wart school. In his compositions elevated thought and subtle expression had a fatal tendency to eclipse the non-essentials; his luminary rays were painted without regard for the laws of decomposition, and his atmospheric vibrations, if he attempted them at all, were not worth speaking of. Besides, the least practised art-student of to-day would not fail to notice that his careful drawing of hands, or the graceful lines of his draperies, would monopolise attention, to the detriment of the backgrounds, which had a way of receding, so that the main interest of the picture could never be said to concentrate upon them.

The enchantress, Art, is ever making new victims. Just now she is wedded to the new master, the variety painter, and is on her wedding-trip, fully equipped with new fashions of tone and colour, rich too in new values; and she travels along happily unconscious—some ignorance is bliss—over the treacherous roads designed by the "new" perspective, past tottering towers, over warped planes, and down steep inclines, pluckily standing her ground where those fallen angels, the old masters, would have feared to tread.

It\'s the old suit once more before us; young folks versus old fogeys, the traditional battle-royal, to be fought to-day, as it will be fought to the end of all time. I say, Hurrah for the young ones! Perhaps they are leading us a step or two backwards, but I verily believe it is only to reculer pour mieux sauter, to back, we should say, the better to jump. So let us keep the line clear for youth and strength; we can\'t do without their vigorous onslaughts. Where would the old tree of art be, if it were not for the new shoots?