immortelles, and as many little images, and medals, and crosses as can be got together; but the awful thing is the head-boards! These are made of wood and every one is decorated with a picture of the departed and his family, the living members of which are kneeling around his dying bed, while the dead ones appear in a bank of clouds above. The horrible distortion of these figures, and the grotesqueness of both the earthly and heavenly garments, is something ghastly—and yet I could single out, every time, those painted by my young Anton, by that truly wonderful feeling and aspiration. Oh, I shall be proud of my pupil yet—and already his feeling for his teacher amounts to veneration. (You, sir, have never looked at me with such worshipful eyes, in your life!) I gave him his first lesson to-day, and it was a thrilling experience! He is going to take to it like a duck to water, and his love for beauty is absolutely touching. I saw him looking, with a sort of hungry delight, at the opal in my ring (my dear ring!) Its marvellous color changes were an evident feast to him. Oh, I am so glad Providence guided me to this place. My Anton is such an interest and impulse onward to me, and will help to beguile the long, weary, desolate, empty days—until you come!"
In due time there came an answer to this letter, and, in turn, an answer to that. And meanwhile every day Anton received a painting lesson, and advanced by strides. It was a deliriously happy life into which he had entered, and he seemed to others, and still more to himself, to be new made. The glow of health which came into his cheeks, and of fire into his eyes, made the strong young peasant suddenly develop a radiant beauty, which was so striking and extraordinary that Ethel could not resist such a model, and set to work to paint him.
She made a spirited and beautiful study of him on a small canvas, painting him full length, in his Tyrolean costume, with the black pointed hat, ornamented with its proud group of rare and perilously purchased little feathers, for Anton was a sportsman as well as an artist, and had won these trophies by his own skill and daring, and many was the votive offering, so procured, which he laid at his young teacher's feet. It was but natural that he should wish to make some return for the hours of patient instruction which she daily bestowed upon him.
