elation.

A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.

What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.

Memory should aid him to gain his purpose. What woman had ever been
fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?

He distinctly recalled her eyes and lips, and during the last few days
remaining to him, his Madonna obtained Florette's joyous expression,
while the sensual, alluring charm, that had been peculiar to the mouth of
the musician's daughter, soon hovered around the Virgin's lips.

Ay, this was a mother, this must be a true mother, for the picture
resembled his own!

The gloomier the mood that pervaded his own soul, the more sunny and
bright the painting seemed. He could not weary of gazing at it, for it
transported him to the happiest hours of his childhood, and when the
Madonna looked down upon him, it seemed as if he beheld the balsams
behind the window of the smithy in the market-place, and again saw the
Handsome nobles, who lifted him from his laughing mother's lap to set him
on their shoulders.

Yes! In this picture he had been aided by the "joyous art," in whose
honor Paolo Veronese, had at one of Titian's banquets, started up,
drained a glass of wine to the dregs, and hurled it through the window
into the canal.

He believed himself sure of success, and could no longer cherish anger
against Isabella. She had led him back into the right path, and it would
be sweet, rapturously sweet, to bear the beloved maiden tenderly and
gently in his strong arms over the rough places of life.

One morning, according to the agreement, he notified Coello that the
Madonna was completed.

The Spanish artist appeared at noon, but did not come alone, and the man,
who preceded him, was no less important a personage than the king
himself.

With throbbing heart, unable to utter a single word, Ulrich opened the
door of the studio, bowing low before the monarch, who without
vouchsafing him a single glance, walked solemnly to the painting.

Coello drew aside the cloth that covered it, and the sarcastic chuckle
Ulrich had so often heard instantly echoed from the king's lips; then
turning to Coello he angrily exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by the
young artist:

"Scandalous! Insulting, offensive botchwork! A Bacchante in the garb of a
Madonna! And the child! Look at those legs! When he grows up, he may
become a dancing-master. He who paints such Madonnas