pauses of his programme; behind him, with
the organ and a monkey, came the wild-eyed
child whose image had, for the last hour or
two, been floating through Claude's dreams.
He got up, went into the street and joined the
crowd of urchins and idlers that followed the
strollers. Soon they got beyond the limits of
the village; then the boy slung the drum
behind him, and flung over his histrionic
costume, a ragged loose coat; he helped the
girl to lade her shoulders with the organ, on
the top of which the monkey perched
himself, and the village idlers, seeing the
artists retire into private life, and
consequently cease to be objects of interest,
dropped off in pairs and groups and returned
to converse of the morrow's performance.

Not so, Claude. When the last of the
idlers had turned away, he addressed himself
to the little girl, whom he had hitherto
followed at some distance, and unperceived,
for she had walked along looking neither to
the right or left, but with the spiritless,
apathetic air of one performing a task whose
dull routine afforded no shadow of interest or
excitement.

She looked up. What a change came
over the listless face!— every feature became
instinct with earnest life; the eyes gleamed,
the lips broke into a radiant smile over
dazzling little teeth, and a warm glow spread
itself beneath the dark, sallow, but transparent
skin:

"Ah! Monsieur!"

"You are glad to see me, little one?"

It was very pleasant, Claude felt, to see
any face light up so at his presence.

"Glad, yes!"

"What is your name?"

"Edmée, Monsieur."

"Should you like me to make a portrait of
you?"

"Of me, Monsieur?" Another blush and
smile.

"Yes; if you will sit, I'll give you forty
sous."

A pained expression crossed the child's
face.

"Yes,—only—"

"Only what? You won't? Why not?"

"Because—mother—"

The boy broke in with the half-laugh, that
rough, bashful boys are wont to introduce
their speeches with.

"She's afraid; the old woman's always on
the look-out for excuses to beat her. Ah,
that's an ugly customer—old hag!"

"But if I ask her leave, and give her
something?"

"Ah, then, perhaps."

It was settled that on the morrow Claude
should make the requisite advances to the
"hag," and giving the forty sous to the children,
by way of earnest-money, each party
took their separate way,—one to the forest,
the other to his inn.

Next day the bargain was struck. A five
franc-piece softened the obdurate nature of
the hag, and she readily consented to Edmée's
giving as many sittings as Claude desired,
provided they did not interfere with the
double drudgery to which the child was
subjected in her domestic and professional
occupations.

She was to Claude a curious study, in
her moral as well as in her physical nature.
Vicious example, uncontrolled passion of
every bad sort,— brutal usage, fraud, force,
the absence of all manliness, of all womanliness
in those she lived with; the absence of
all tenderness, of all instruction,—such was
the moral atmosphere in which she had
grown to girlhood, such was the soil in which
were sown a warm heart, an intense sensibility,
a bright intelligence, and a keen sense
of all grace and beauty. Not a tint of vulgarity
was in the child's nature; not a word
passed her lips that had not a meaning, not
a movement of her limbs but was replete with
a strange peculiar grace.

Claude was fascinated by the elfin child,
who, as she sat or stood before him, seemed
not only to guess all his slightest intentions,
but constantly suggested new ideas of form
and symmetry beautiful beyond description.
He sketched and painted her in every attitude;
he sometimes feared to weary her,
but when he expressed the fear, she shook
her head, with one of her bright smiles, and
an emphatic "Jamais!" so he went on
painting, sometimes talking to her, sometimes
in a silence which lasted for hours, and which
she never attempted to break.

At length, after the fifth positive last
appearance of the troupe, they
prepared to collect their scanty properties and
decamp, and with more than one heavy
sigh, Claude bundled his baggage into his
knapsack, armed himself with his stick, and
started on the road to Paris; for his summer
wanderings were over, and he was going back
to his quartier Beaujon to vitalise their fruits.

His way lay through woods,—a part of
the forest where he had first met Edmée, but
quite in the opposite direction. At first he
was thinking of her, sadly and pityingly, and
with many conjectures as to the future fate
of so strange a nature so strangely placed.

Then, by degrees, the artist again came
uppermost. He thought of the pictures he
would paint, in all of which some hint, some
movement, some expression taken from her,
could be introduced with precious effect. He
opened his sketch-book, and as he walked
slowly on, he contemplated the innumerable
studies of her with which it was filled. He
looked up at last; before him stood the
original,—trembling, her great eyes rivetted on
his face, with a look at once fearful, so
earnest, so beseeching.

"You, Edmée!"

Her breath came fast and thick, and her
voice was hardly intelligible; but, as she
went on, it strengthened.