his daughter with him again;
and from the boarding-school, sheltered by so healthy a tranquility,
Felicia returned once more to her father's studio, haunted still by the
same boon companions, the parasites which swarm around every celebrity,
into the midst of which sickness had introduced a new personage, Dr.
Jenkins.

His fine open countenance, the air of candour, of serenity that seemed
to dwell about the person of this physician, already famous, who was
wont to speak of his art so carelessly and yet seemed to work miraculous
cures, the care with which he surrounded her father, these things made
a great impression on the young girl. Jenkins became immediately her
friend, confidant, a vigilant and kind guardian. Occasionally, when,
in the studio, somebody--her father most likely of all--uttered a risky
jest, the Irishman would contract his eyebrows, give a little click of
the tongue, or perhaps distract Felicia's attention.

He often used to take her to pass the day with Mme. Jenkins,
endeavouring to prevent her from becoming again the wild young thing she
was before going to school, or even something worse, as she threatened
to do in the moral neglect, sadder than all other, in which she was
left.

But the young girl had as a protection something even better than the
irreproachable and worldly example of the handsome Mme. Jenkins: the art
that she adored, the enthusiasm which it implanted in her nature wholly
occupied with outside things, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which,
from her thoughtful brain, full of ideas, passed into her fingers with
a little quivering of the nerves, a desire of the idea accomplished, of
the realized image. All day long she would work at her sculpture, giving
shape to her dreams with that happiness of instinctive youth which
lends so much charm to early work; this prevented her from any excessive
regret for the austerity of the Belin institution, sheltering and light
as the veil of a novice before her vows, and preserved her also from
dangerous conversations, unheard amid her unique preoccupation.

Ruys was proud of this talent growing up at his side. Growing every day
feebler, already at that stage in which the artist regrets himself, he
found in following Felicia's progress a certain consolation for his
own ended career. He saw the boasting-tool, which trembled in his hand,
taken up again under his eye with a virile firmness and assurance,
tempered by all those delicacies of her