happened to settle in our smoky northern | have no reason to be ashamed. You see,

I do whatever work comes to my hand.' As he spoke, he took off the cloth_that covered the parcel, and disclosed a large wooden panel on which was faintly discernible a painting, representing a swan with two necks swimming in a very blue river. It was a sign-board!

"This poor swan looks just ready to sing his death-song, or perhaps I should say songs, since he has two throats," said my master; "but I am going to make him young again."

"You are going to do this!" I exclaimed.

town. It seemed to us that he had lived there always, and in all his life had done nothing but teach, teach, teach. "Are you never tired of it?" I asked one day. "Tired, yes!" he said with his habitual smile. "But one must not mind being tired, Miss Ellen; it is my work, you see.' "Such unrewarded work! I could not help saying it, as I looked down the long rows of desks, on which lay drawings in every stage of badness. His eyes followed mine with a funny twinkle in them. "Certainly, I do feel sometimes that it would be pleasant to teach those who truly "One must live," said Mr. Hirsch wished to learn. They none of them work, cheerfully, "and one must help others to those young ladies. Ah! in our old studio | live. This picture will possess one adit was different. What ambition! But-"vantage; it is sure to be hung. There Mr. Hirsch stopped short, shrugged his are many artists who would be glad if bent shoulders, and began to put away they could say as much as that of their the drawings and prepare the room for his works." next class. I remained to finish a chalk study; I think I was the only one of his lady-pupils who worked with zeal. Presently he came up and looked over my shoulder.

66

Pretty well!" he said. "You have a feeling for form, Miss Ellen. It is a pity you do not devote more time to painting; you might perhaps do something."

"Do you really think so?"

"Well, it might be so, with time and pains," said my master slowly. "You are receptive. If we cannot create, it is always something if we can receive and distribute. And I have perhaps a few secrets, I have learnt something. I am no artist myself; but I would like, if it may be, to make one artist."

A few days later a note, misspelt, and in a cramped foreign hand, signed Célie Hirsch, informed me that the next drawing-lesson must be put off as my master was ill.

"You had better go to-morrow and inquire for him," said my father. "Take a bunch of grapes with you."

I had never before been to my drawingmaster's house; the rooms where we took our lessons were in another part of the town. The little slipshod girl who an. swered the bell, instead of replying to my inquiries, merely rapped at a door in the entrance passage, called out, "You're wanted, madam," and disappeared. A high-pitched voice called out "Come in." I opened the door and found myself in a tiny sitting-room. By an empty grate sat a woman neatly dressed in shabby black, who rose hastily when she saw

me.

"But," I ventured to ask, "why are you no artist, you who know so much? Why do you not yourself paint? He spread out his hands, smiling. "It"Pardon, mademoiselle!" she said. "I is too late I am old — and had not expected a visitor; forgive me that I did not open to you. I am lame, I walk with difficulty, and to-day I am tired." She had a crutch by her side and seemed infirm and old, though as I afterwards found, her age could not have exceeded forty-five.

have no time for painting. Once indeed I had my dreams, but not now."

"Ah, what a pity!" I said. "Not at all, no, when one grows old one does not cease dreaming; one's dreams alter, that is all. I have my dream always," said my master, still smiling.

We were interrupted by a ring at the outer door. Mr. Hirsch went and opened it, and after a short parley with some one outside, returned, carrying a huge square parcel. As it seemed heavy I went to his assistance, and between us we got it into a little inner room which he reserved for his own use.

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"This is my own business,” he said. My pupils might laugh at it, though I

She told me that Mr. Hirsch was in bed with bronchitis, but she hoped he would soon be able to resume his lessons. She apologized for asking me into a cold room: "He needed the fire up-stairs." When I opened my basket she cried, Oh, ciel! and held up her hands with delight. "This is indeed goodness; only this morning I was thinking, if I had but some grapes for my husband!" She took them with a tender touch, almost a caress.

"It

is so long since I have held grapes in my
hand," she said; "it is as if I were once
more in France. Will mademoiselle do
me the favor to sit down while I take them
to monsieur? He will like to make you
his thanks." She spoke slowly, with a
French accent much stronger than her
husband's. While she was gone I looked
about me. I think, at that time of my life,
I had never seen so poor a room. It had
in it, with two exceptions, nothing but the
most absolutely needful furniture, and that
of the homeliest. These exceptions were
striking. The first was a handsomely
carved and gilt frame containing the head,
apparently a portrait, of a young man
sketched in charcoal. The other was
much more remarkable. It was an oil |
painting representing a group of French.
peasants returning from the harvest-field.
Even I, ignorant as I was, could perceive
that it was a work of great power and
beauty. Its delicate pearl-grey tones so
perfectly harmonized, its tender, restrained
feeling riveted my attention. I was still
looking at it when Mrs. Hirsch returned.
"Ah!" she said, "that was painted by
my first husband. He was a great artist.
You never heard of him? It is because
he died young, before he was appreciated.
If he had lived he would have been
famous. Mr. Hirsch says so, and he
knows," she concluded, with an odd mix-
ture of pride in her two husbands. "And
that," she added, turning to the charcoal
sketch, "is his son, my Anatole, drawn by
bimself."

of a huge salmon, which ornamented the window of a small fishing-tackle shop. On this occasion he seemed a little embarrassed, and I turned quickly away and never afterwards referred to our meeting.

Gradually I learnt the meaning of all this industry. Anatole, the young original of the charcoal portrait, was being supported as a student in Paris at the expense of his stepfather. "He will be a great artist, I am sure of it," said Mr. Hirsch to me. "It is our duty to develop his genius."

"Does he know how hard you work?" I asked. "Would he like you to do all this for him?"

"Ah-bah! It is nothing," said Mr. Hirsch, smiling.

"That is what he always says," said his wife; "but it has been everything to us to Anatole and me."

One day, when Mr. Hirsch was out, she told me the story. How happy she had been with her first husband, the young artist just rising into fame, till he was shot down in the street on that terrible fourth of December, 1851; how Mr. Hirsch, his favorite pupil, had stood by his side in that hopeless fight for law and liberty and had carried him back, a dying man, to the little studio which had been so full of life and hope; how she had found herself left quite alone with her little boy of three years old. "I was an orphan, 1 had no one, no one," she said with falling tears. "I had been hurt by an accident; I was lame, as you see me now, and I "He then is also an artist ?" could get no work. We nearly starved "He is a student. He has his father's all that winter, I and the boy. I had sold genius; some day he too will be an artist." all that we could sell except that picture; After this first visit, for one reason or she looked towards the painting on the another I often went to my drawing-mas- wall. "It was his last; it broke my heart ter's house. His cough hung long about to think of parting with it; but I had him, and before he could go out he offered made up my mind that it must go, when to give me and his other pupils lessons at one day Gottlieb came, and asked if he home if we chose to come. I gladly might work for me and the boy. He said availed myself of the offer. Mrs. Hirsch he owed everything to my husband, and was usually present, busy with some fine he would like to make some return. He needlework, which no doubt helped to eke had heard of some work in England as a out the family income. I observed that teacher of drawing. There was only one my master paid her a certain deference, way, mademoiselle, and I thought of my and almost always addressed her as ma boy. We were married, and he has been dame. As both husband and wife were the best of husbands to me. Since then constantly occupied, I could not at first we have had many struggles, but we have understand why they seemed so poor. always had enough to live upon. Mr. Nothing seemed to come amiss to Mr. Hirsch has tried everything. He wished Hirsch. Sometimes he would be painting to be a painter, but no one would buy his a sign-board, sometimes designing a play- pictures, and the boy's education has cost bill, or drawing ornamental headings for much money; so he has had to turn his tradesmen's circulars. Once, in an out-of-hand to anything that came. I have often the-way corner of the town, I came upon been sorry; but then he is not a genius him engaged in freshening up the portrait like my first husband and my boy."

One morning, coming early to the draw- | me look over his portfolios. They were ing-school, I found Mr. Hirsch hard at work before a small easel. Contrary to his wont he was so absorbed that he did not notice the opening of the door, and I came quite close to him before he stirred, close enough to see that his usual air of smiling patience was exchanged for an expression of intense eagerness which made him appear at least ten years younger. When he noticed me he looked up like a schoolboy caught in some mis chievous trick.

"You find me wasting my time sadly, Miss Ellen; but I had really no work till you came, so I amuse myself a little.”

I looked at the easel, on it was a small, half-finished oil sketch, an old woman selling flowers in the street.

.

'It is a little figure that I saw," said my master, as if apologizing for his occupation. "You see, she is old, and she is ugly, and so is the street she sits in, but the flowers brighten all. It pleases me to paint them, though I do but waste my time."

"Surely it cannot be waste of time to paint like this."

"Not for a student. For a student I might even say that this would be good work. But for a painter it is nothing. Once I thought to be a painter, but I began too late, and it is all at an end now. It needs much labor, very much labor. I have not had the time."

"You did not work at it long?" "Three-no, four years; that is nothing, it needs a lifetime. I was a poor boy, a farmer's son in the Vosges, and I used to draw, many a time, when I should have been minding my work. I am sorry for it now.

full of sketches, some of them memorials of his student days, some done at odd times in his years of teaching. There were also a few finished pictures which he had failed to sell. My father, who was something of a connoisseur, came and looked at them, and bought two of the pictures. Really, Mr. Hirsch," he said, "I had no idea you were such an artist, or I would have given myself the pleasure of looking at your work sooner. It is a loss for our town that you do not continue painting."

A faint color came into my master's pale face, and his eyes sparkled. It was long since he had had the pleasure of talking with one who really knew anything about pictures; and then the sale of his work was a solid proof of appreciation.

"I have sometimes thought," he said in a hesitating way, "since my son has had the good fortune to do a little for himself lately, that I might venture to spend some of my leisure in that manner. Your generosity, your kind words," he added with a low bow to my father, "will make it easier."

A few weeks later Mr. Hirsch beckoned to me mysteriously from the door of his little inner room, the same where he had repainted the two-necked swan. I laid down my brush and went in. He was standing before an easel on which a picture was dawning. The subject was the same as the little sketch I had before seen, an old woman with flowers. "This subject haunts me," he said; "the flowers which brighten dull lives, the beauty which God sends into our dreariest streets; I think perhaps I might be able to paint it. If I could put into my picWhen I came to be a man 1ture all that I can see in the face of the went to Paris, and found my way to an old woman who comes to sit to me, there artist's studio. He took me in as his ser- should be something in it to touch the vant, to mix his colors and clean his heart; but that is very hard." brushes and go on his errands. I was happy enough to see him paint, and try at odd times to imitate him; but when he found out that I loved painting he got another lad to serve him, and made me his pupil, and treated me as a brother. Those were happy days, indeed; but he died, and since then I have had to get a living for myself, and my family, and I could not do it by art."

Now I understood why Mr. Hirsch worked so hard for his stepson. I understood too, that he had given the boy much more than time and labor; he had given his dearest wish, the dream of his life.

After I had surprised his picture on the easel, Mr. Hirsch would sometimes let

All that autumn and winter Mr. Hirsch worked at his picture whenever he had any spare time; and my father managed to sell a few sketches for him, so that he might allow himself more leisure for this happy toil. It was wonderful to see how the return to his beloved art transformed him. He held up his head and seemed bright and almost young. I sometimes felt sorry when I looked at him, and saw how sanguine he was growing. In his rapt attention to his work he appeared to forget what he had once told me, that it was now too late for him to become an artist.

"I shall send it to the Academy," he said one day when it was almost done. "That is best. It may not sell, but at