from
a dilapidated fountain in the middle. On the further side of the pond
the ground sloped downward toward the south, and revealed, over a low
paling, a pretty view of a village and its church, backed by fir woods
mounting the heathy sides of a range of hills beyond. A fanciful little
wooden building, imitating the form of a Swiss cottage, was placed so as
to command the prospect. Near it, in the shadow of the building, stood a
rustic chair and table--with a color-box on one, and a portfolio on the
other. Fluttering over the grass, at the mercy of the capricious breeze,
was a neglected sheet of drawing-paper. Francine ran round the pond, and
picked up the paper just as it was on the point of being tilted into
the water. It contained a sketch in water colors of the village and the
woods, and Francine had looked at the view itself with indifference--the
picture of the view interested her. Ordinary visitors to Galleries of
Art, which admit students, show the same strange perversity. The work of
the copyist commands their whole attention; they take no interest in the
original picture.

Looking up from the sketch, Francine was startled. She discovered a man,
at the window of the Swiss summer-house, watching her.

"When you have done with that drawing," he said quietly, "please let me
have it back again."

He was tall and thin and dark. His finely-shaped intelligent
face--hidden, as to the lower part of it, by a curly black beard--would
have been absolutely handsome, even in the eyes of a schoolgirl, but for
the deep furrows that marked it prematurely between the eyebrows, and at
the sides of the mouth. In the same way, an underlying mockery impaired
the attraction of his otherwise refined and gentle manner. Among
his fellow-creatures, children and dogs were the only critics who
appreciated his merits without discovering the defects which lessened
the favorable appreciation of him by men and women. He dressed neatly,
but his morning coat was badly made, and his picturesque felt hat was
too old. In short, there seemed to be no good quality about him which
was not perversely associated with a drawback of some kind. He was one
of those harmless and luckless men, possessed of excellent qualities,
who fail nevertheless to achieve popularity in their social sphere.

Francine handed his sketch to him, through the window; doubtful whether
the words that he had addressed to her were spoken in jest or in
earnest.

"I only pres