l.

"I will give you a lot of it to take home," said Emma. "I thought I
would bring a good deal, because you might have to try several times
before you got a good picture. Now pick out a pencil, Fani."

It seemed to Fani a wonderful mine of wealth; all this fresh paper, and
such an assortment of pencils to choose from. He selected two pencils,
and then, spreading a sheet of white paper before him, he began his
sketch. Emma watched every stroke with silent intentness. But, as the
picture grew under the boy's fingers, she could not control her
excitement.

"Oh! oh! Now it looks exactly like the real oak! How nicely you make the
branches and all the dear little twigs! Oh! it is the very best thing
you ever did, Fani! How pleased the teacher will be! I'm sure none of
the others will do anything half so good! How can you do it, Fani? I
never could in the world."

"I only just copy what I see," said Fani, whose eyes constantly moved
back and forth between the tree and his paper, while his cheeks glowed
and his eyes sparkled with excitement. "How lovely those twigs are! and
then the leaves! I don't think any leaf is as handsome as an oak-leaf,
and just look up there! see how perfectly round the shape of the tree
stands out against the sky, as if it had been marked by a pair of
compasses. Oh, I wish I could sit all day long drawing this tree; there
isn't anything more beautiful in the whole world!"

"I know something!" cried Emma, suddenly; "you must be an artist, Fani.
That's the way a painter begins, I'm sure; no one else would ever think
of saying that he could sit all day long drawing one tree."

"It's all very well to say that I must be an artist," said Fani,
sighing; "but next spring, when I leave school, I shall have to go into
the factory and just work hard from morning till night; I couldn't
learn to paint then, if I wanted to ever so much, could I?"

"But you do want to ever so much; don't you, Fani? Think how glorious it
would be! Wouldn't you do anything in the world for the sake of being a
painter?"

"Of course I would, but what can I do? How could I possibly manage it?"

"You just wait; I'll think and think till I can invent some way. Only
imagine how fine it will be when you are a famous painter and have
nothing to do but to paint and draw all the time. Won't that be just the
very best thing you can think of, Fani?"

Emma's enthusiasm was infectious. The pencil dropped from the boy's
hand, and he gaze