here all the summer, and I am going to give you a lesson every day. I can teach you all I know, and if you do as well as I expect, you will, after that, go to Munich and study, or to Paris. The time will come when you will offer me your hand, and I shall not dare to take it, as you have not dared now."
The group of peasants, now augmented by the arrival of two men, looked on in astonishment. Florence, comprehending both their wonder and the cause which had produced it, made a hasty explanation, and hurried Ethel away, helping her to gather up her belongings and to express her thanks.
Just as they were ready to go, the young girl, with a quick impulse, held outher little canvas to Anton, saying impulsively:
"I will give it to you. You can take it and study it carefully. It may teach you something. When you are a great painter you shall give me a picture of yours. And, remember, I shall expect you at the hotel to-morrow, to arrange for your first lesson."
That was the way it began,—this intercourse between the two young artists.
That evening, Ethel, looking more lovely than ever in a soft blue gown, with her hair loose about her shoulders, sat alone in her room writing, with a look of joy on her face. She wrote some of these sheets every evening, and sent them off by post, twice a week. She had written several pages with rapidity, and now paused and read them over with a look on her face which showed how much her own subject interested her. She took up her pen and went on:
"Now that I have described to you my wonderful young painter and his really remarkable mural work, I must tell you about his painting on the little wooden head-boards in the church-yard. Such a picturesque little church it is, perched on a steep cliff, overlooking the lovely valley through which the river winds, and beyond which the great mountains rise immeasurably high! There is a cunning priest's house near the church, with a fascinating old sun-dial on its walls (one never sees a clock here). This little house is also founded upon a rock—but, oh, how barren and empty it looks! and how lonely! You would be filled with pity to see it! The church-yard is the tawdriest thing you can imagine, with the graves hung about with bead flowers, faded
