“Well, as to that, it’s rather early to form an opinion. Our aim just now is to keep them to facts. Some of them,” the artist added with a smile, “are rather too much inclined to draw upon their imagination. Now there is one girl there who is, humanly speaking, certain to paint the model’s hair jet-black, or as black as paint can be made. And yet, you see, there is not a black thread in it.”
“I wonder whether you would object to my making an experiment?” Mrs. Jacques asked, abruptly.
And from that seemingly unpremeditated question of Mrs. Jacques’, and from the consultation that ensued, grew the Prize Contest, destined to be famous in the annals of the school.
When, on that very afternoon, the students were assembled for the occasion, they had not yet had time to adjust their minds to the magnitude of the interests involved. Yet the conditions were simple enough. That student who should, in the space of two hours, produce the best composition illustrative of “Hope” was to 74 receive a prize of five hundred dollars! The conviction prevailed among them that the vivacious little old lady with the white hair could be none other than the fairy godmother of nursery lore, and it was only too delightful to find that agile and beneficent myth interesting herself in the cause of Art.
When once the class was fairly launched upon its new emprise, a change in the usual aspect of things became apparent. In the first place, most of the students were seated; for, in a task of pure composition, there was no occasion either for standing or for “prowling,”—the term familiarly applied to the sometimes disastrous backward and forward movements of which mention has been made, and which ordinarily gave so much action to the scene. Furthermore, the use of watercolor, as lending itself more readily than oils to rapid execution, deprived the scene of one of its most picturesque features,—namely, the brilliant-hued palette which, with its similarity to a shield, was wont to lend its bearer an Amazonian air, not lost 75 upon the class caricaturists. Subdued, however, and almost “lady-like” as the appearance of the class had become, hardly half an hour had passed before the genial spirit of creation had so taken possession of the assembly as to cast a glow and glamour of its own upon it. Here and there, to be sure, might still be seen an anxious, intent young face with eyes fixed upon vacancy, or an idle, if somewhat begrimed and parti-coloured hand, fiercely clutching a dejected head; but nearly all were already busily at work, eagerly painting, or as eagerly obliterating strokes too hastily made. The subject, hackneyed as it certainly is, had pleased and stimulated the girls. There was a mingled vagueness and familiarity in its suggestion which puzzled them and spurred them on at the same time.
Among the most impetuous workers, almost from the outset, was Artful Madge. She had instantly conceived of Hope as a vague, beckoning figure, which was to take its significance from the multitude and variety of its followers. She chose a large 76 sheet of paper and quickly sketched in the upper left-hand corner a very indefinite hint of a winged, luminous something,—it might have been an angel or a bird or a cloud, seen from a great distance, against a somewhat threatening sky. Without defining the form at all she very cleverly produced an impression of receding motion;—she ventured even to hope that there was something alluring in the motion. That, however, must be made unmistakably clear through the pursuing figures with which she proposed to fill the foreground.
She glanced at Eleanor, who had not yet mixed a colour.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked.
“I don’t seem ready to begin,” said Eleanor, in an absent tone of voice.
“Have you got an idea?”