organize their little excursions and make the best
of the sunshine, shade and warmth. But when those who had been
away returned and all settled down for the winter, they found the
"American" as they called him, in his old place. He had not been away
at all; he had worked as hard as ever through midsummer heat and
autumn rain; he was frailer in figure, his clothes were more worn,
his face was thinner and his eyes far too hollow and bright, but he
did not look either discouraged or unhappy.

"How does he live?" exclaimed the _concierge_ dramatically. "The good
God knows! He eats nothing, he has no fire, he wears the clothing of
midsummer--he paints--he paints--he paints! Perhaps that is enough for
him. It would not be for me."

At this time--just as the winter entered with bleak winds and rains
and falls of powdery snow--there presented herself among them an
arrival whose appearance created a sensation.

One night on his way up-stairs, the American found himself confronted
on the fourth floor by a flood of light streaming through the open
door of a before unoccupied room. It was a small room, meagerly
furnished, but there was a fire in it and half a dozen people who
laughed and talked at the top of their voices. Five of them were men
he had seen before,--artists who lived in the house,--but the sixth
was a woman whom he had never seen and whose marvellous beauty held
him spell-bound where he stood.

She was a woman of twenty-two or three, with an oval face whose
fairness was the fairness of ivory. She was dark-eyed and low-browed,
and as she leaned forward upon the table and looked up at the man who
spoke to her, even the bright glow of the lamp, which burned directly
before her face, showed no flaw in either tint or outline.

"Why should we ask the reason of your return?" said the man. "Let us
rejoice that you are here."

"I will tell you the reason," she answered, without lowering her eyes.
"I was tired."

"A good reason," was the reply.

She pushed her chair back and stood upright; her hands hung at her
side; the men were all looking at her; she smiled down at them with
fine irony.

"Who among you wishes to paint me?" she said. "I am again at your
service, and I am not less handsome than I was."

Then there arose among them a little rapturous murmur, and somehow it
broke the spell which had rested upon the man outside. He started,
shivered slightly and turned away. He went up to the bare coldness of
his