Henry saw it was no use bidding low. “I'll pay L15 down,” said he, “and I'll engage not to draw relief from your fund, unless disabled by accident or violence.”
“I will submit your offer to the trade,” said Jobson. He added, “Then there, I conclude, the matter rests for the present.”
Henry interpreted this to mean that he had nothing to apprehend, unless his proposal should be rejected. He put the L15 down on the table, though Mr. Jobson told him that was premature, and went off as light as a feather. Being nice and clean, and his afternoon's work spoiled, he could not resist the temptation; he went to “Woodbine Villa.” He found Miss Carden at home, and she looked quietly pleased at his unexpected arrival: but Jael's color came and went, and her tranquil bosom rose and fell slowly, but grandly, for a minute, as she lowered her head over her work.
This was a heavenly change to Henry Little. Away from the deafening workshop, and the mean jealousies and brutality of his inferiors, who despised him, to the presence of a beautiful and refined girl, who was his superior, yet did not despise him. From sin to purity, from din to cleanliness, from war to peace, from vilest passions to Paradise.
Her smile had never appeared so fascinating, her manner never so polite yet placid. How softly and comfortably she and her ample dress nestled into the corner of the sofa and fitted it! How white her nimble hand! how bright her delicious face! How he longed to kiss her exquisite hand, or her little foot, or her hem, or the ground she walked on, or something she had touched, or her eye had dwelt on.
But he must not even think too much of such delights, lest he should show his heart too soon. So, after a short lesson, he proposed to go into the lumber-room and find something to work upon. “Yes, do,” said Grace. “I would go too; but no; it was my palace of delight for years, and its treasures inexhaustible. I will not go to be robbed of one more illusion, it is just possible I might find it really is what the profane in this house call it—a lumber-room—and not what memory paints it, a temple of divine curiosities.” And so she sent them off, and she set herself to feel old—“oh, so old!”
And presently Henry came back, laden with a great wooden bust of Erin, that had been the figure-head of a wrecked schooner; and set it down, and told her he should carve that into a likeness of herself, and she must do her share of the work.
Straightway she forgot she was worn out; and clapped her hands, and her eyes sparkled. And the floor was prepared, and Henry went to work like one inspired, and the chips flew in every direction, and the paint was chiseled away in no time, and the wood proved soft and kindly, and just the color of a delicate skin, and Henry said, “The Greek Statues, begging their pardons, have all got hair like mops; but this shall have real hair, like your own: and the silk dress, with the gloss on; and the lace; but the face, the expression, how can I ever—?”
“Oh, never mind THEM,” cried Grace. “Jael, this is too exciting. Please go and tell them 'not at home' to anybody.”
Then came a pretty picture: the workman, with his superb hand, brown and sinewy, yet elegant and shapely as a duchess's, and the fingers almost as taper, and his black eye that glowed like a coal over the model, which grew under his masterly strokes, now hard, now light: the enchanting girl who sat to him, and seemed on fire with curiosity and innocent admiration: and the simple rural beauty, that plied the needle, and beamed mildly with demure happiness, and shot a shy glance upward now and then.