een dinned into his ears: Draw, draw!

A female model was soon found; but instead of trusting his eyes and
boldly reproducing what he beheld, he measured again and again, and
effaced what the red pencil had finished. While painting his courage
rose, for the hair, flesh, and dress seemed to him to become true to
nature and effective. But he, who in better times had bound himself heart
and soul to Art and served her with his whole soul, in this picture
forced himself to a method of work, against which his inmost heart
rebelled. His model was beautiful, but he could read nothing in the
regular features, except that they were fair, and the lifeless
countenance became distasteful to him. The boy too caused him great
trouble, for he lacked appreciation of the charm of childish innocence,
the spell of childish character.

Meantime he felt great secret anxiety. The impulse that moved his brush
was no longer the divine pleasure in creation of former days, but dread
of failure, and ardent, daily increasing love for Isabella.

Weeks elapsed.

Ulrich lived in the lonely little palace to which he had retired,
avoiding all society, toiling early and late with restless, joyless
industry, at a work which pleased him less with every new day.

Don Juan of Austria sometimes met him in the park. Once the Emperor's son
called to him:

"Well, Navarrete, how goes the enlisting?"

But Ulrich would not abandon his art, though he had long doubted its
omnipotence. The nearer the second month approached its close, the more
frequently, the more fervently he called upon the "word," but it did not
hear.

When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek
brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield, and
to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole hours,
till the sacristan put out the lights.

He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no
humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced
him.

Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the
fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they
were actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the
gentle, tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.

One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted
time, a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted into
his brain like a rev