remained standing near me, following all my gestures with
concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that she was
disturbing me, she said to me: 'Thank you,' and walked away.

"But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me every
day, her countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She carried her
folding stool under her arm; would not consent to my carrying it, and
she sat always by my side. She would remain there for hours immovable
and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush in its every
movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of color spread on
with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of
herself, give vent to a half-suppressed 'Oh!' of astonishment, of joy,
of admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an
almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of
nature's work divine. My studies appeared to her to be pictures of
sanctity, and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of
converting me.

"Oh! He was a queer good-natured being, this God of hers. He was a sort
of village philosopher without any great resources, and without great
power; for she always figured him to herself as a being quivering over
injustices committed under his eyes, and helpless to prevent them.

"She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be
the confidant of his secrets and of his whims. She said:

"'God wills, or God does not will,' just like a sergeant announcing to
a recruit: 'The colonel has commanded.'

"At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions
of the Eternal, which she strove, nay, felt herself compelled, to
impart to me.

"Almost every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it
from the ground, in my box of colors, in my polished shoes, standing in
the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which
she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.

"I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality.
But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner; but,
for a while, I paid little attention to it.

"When I walked about, whether to the bottom of the valley, or through
some country lanes, I would see her suddenly appear, as though she were
returning from a rapid walk. She would then sit down abruptly, out of
breath, as though she had been running or overcome by some profound
emotion. Her face would