ust stood and
looked. Her eyes kindled, her color rose, despondency and discontent
vanished, and her soul was in her face, for she loved beauty
passionately, and all that was best and truest in her did honor to the
genius of the unknown worker.

"If I could do a thing like that, I'd die happy!" she exclaimed
impetuously, as a feeling of despair came over her at the thought of
her own poor attempts.

"Who did it, Giovanni?" she asked, still looking up at the grand face
with unsatisfied eyes.

"Paul Gage."

It was not the boy's voice, and, with a start, Psyche turned to see
her Michael Angelo, standing in the doorway, attentively observing
her. Being too full of artless admiration to think of herself just
yet, she neither blushed nor apologized, but looked straight at him,
saying heartily,--

"You have done a wonderful piece of work, and I envy you more than I
can tell!"

The enthusiasm in her face, the frankness of her manner, seemed to
please him, for there was no affectation about either. He gave her a
keen, kind glance out of the "fine gray eyes," a little bow, and a
grateful smile, saying quietly,--"Then my Adam is not a failure in
spite of his fall?"

Psyche turned from the sculptor to his model with increased admiration
in her face, and earnestness in her voice, as she exclaimed
delighted,--

"Adam! I might have known it was he. O sir, you have indeed succeeded,
for you have given that figure the power and pathos of the first man
who sinned and suffered, and began again."

"Then I am satisfied." That was all he said, but the look he gave his
work was a very eloquent one, for it betrayed that he had paid the
price of success in patience and privation, labor and hope.

"What can one do to learn your secret?" asked the girl wistfully, for
there was nothing in the man's manner to disturb her self-forgetful
mood, but much to foster it, because to the solitary worker this
confiding guest was as welcome as the doves who often hopped in at his
window.

"Work and wait, and meantime feed heart, soul, and imagination with
the best food one can get," he answered slowly, finding it impossible
to give a receipt for genius.

"I can work and wait a long time to gain my end; but I don't know
where to find the food you speak of?" she answered, looking at him
like a hungry child.

"I wish I could tell you, but each needs different fare, and each must
look for it in different places."

The kindly tone and the sym