served, "Adelaide, you left the door
open."

"That was to come to my assistance," said the painter, with a grateful
smile.

"You came down just now, mother," replied the young girl, with a blush.

"Would you like us to accompany you all the way downstairs?" asked the
mother. "The stairs are dark."

"No, thank you, indeed, madame; I am much better."

"Hold tightly by the rail."

The two women remained on the landing to light the young man, listening
to the sound of his steps.

In order to set forth clearly all the exciting and unexpected interest
this scene might have for the young painter, it must be told that he
had only a few days since established his studio in the attics of this
house, situated in the darkest and, therefore, the most muddy part of
the Rue de Suresnes, almost opposite the Church of the Madeleine, and
quite close to his rooms in the Rue des Champs-Elysees. The fame his
talent had won him having made him one of the artists most dear to his
country, he was beginning to feel free from want, and to use his own
expression, was enjoying his last privations. Instead of going to his
work in one of the studios near the city gates, where the moderate rents
had hitherto been in proportion to his humble earnings, he had gratified
a wish that was new every morning, by sparing himself a long walk, and
the loss of much time, now more valuable than ever.

No man in the world would have inspired feelings of greater interest
than Hippolyte Schinner if he would ever have consented to make
acquaintance; but he did not lightly entrust to others the secrets of
his life. He was the idol of a necessitous mother, who had brought him
up at the cost of the severest privations. Mademoiselle Schinner, the
daughter of an Alsatian farmer, had never been married. Her tender soul
had been cruelly crushed, long ago, by a rich man, who did not pride
himself on any great delicacy in his love affairs. The day when, as a
young girl, in all the radiance of her beauty and all the triumph of her
life, she suffered, at the cost of her heart and her sweet illusions,
the disenchantment which falls on us so slowly and yet so quickly--for
we try to postpone as long as possible our belief in evil, and it seems
to come too soon--that day was a whole age of reflection, and it was
also a day of religious thought and resignation. She refused the alms of
the man who had betrayed her, renounced the world, and made a glory of
her shame. She