Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/72

"A light breaks upon my eyes, which have forgotten the darkness in the great panorama which has been spread before my mind. I struggle to my feet, and in a moment am surrounded by my friends, who have not had time even to notice my absence. It was but for a half-hour, after all, that I was lost in the salt-mine."

After this preliminary visit followed days of earnest work, during which the studio door yielded not to the touch of friend or admirer, Margaret's father even being for the first time excluded from her counsels. Hitherto she had labored mainly to please him, and had worked under his direction, carrying out his ideas. She had been, in very fact, little more than the fine tool he had fashioned for himself. All was now changed. Her individuality must play its part; she would be held responsible for her work, and her brain alone must direct her hand. For the first time in her life she felt the creative force in herself. The clay seemed a living substance, which moulded itself beneath her hands as if as much interested as she in the process of its transformation. When her model was complete, Margaret and her father disappeared from the city, accompanied by a kindred spirit, whom Margaret had discovered in the person of one Antonio, a master stonecutter famous for his tasteful mantelpieces and mortuary monuments.