at H.C. In his face at least there was no hesitation. Such a
prize was not to be lost if it could be obtained within reasonable
limits. It must take a place amongst his old china, his headless Saints
and Madonnas!

[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, MORLAIX.]

The first time we came across the old man--it was quite by accident
that we found him out--we felt that we had discovered a prize in human
nature: one of those rare exceptions that exist still in out-of-the-way
nooks and corners, but are seldom found. It is so difficult to go
through the world and remain unspoiled by it; especially for those who,
having to work for their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, have to
come into daily contact with that harder, coarser element in human
nature, that, for ever over-reaching its neighbour, tries to believe
that the race _is_ to the swift and the battle to the strong.

The son was away from the town on the occasion of our first visit. The
father seemed proud of him in a quiet, gentle sort of way, and
gentleness was evidently the key-note to his character. He said his son
had carried off all the prizes in a Paris School of Art, and one prize
that was especially difficult to obtain. Would we come again and see
him, and see his work?

We went again. At the door-sill a little child greeted us; the most
beautiful little face we had ever seen. Nothing in any picture of an old
master ever equalled it. At the first moment we almost thought it the
face of an angel, as it looked up into our faces with all the confidence
and innocence of infancy. The child might have been eighteen months old,
just at the age when the eyes begin to take that inquiring look upon
everything, as if they had just awakened to the fact that they had
arrived upon a scene where all was new and strange. The eyes of this
child were large and of a celestial blue; fair curls fell over his
shoulders; his cheeks were round like a cherub's, and had the hue of the
damask rose. The strangest part about the face was its refinement, as if
the little fellow, instead of being born of the people, had come of a
long line of noble ancestors.

We went into the workshop, and there found the father of the child at
work, the son of the old man.

We no longer wondered at the child's beauty; it was a counterpart of the
father's, but to the latter was added all the grace and maturity of
manhood. Unlike the old man, the face was round and flushed with the hue
of health. Large dar