“I should so like to be an artist,” said Will, the quick flush mounting to his temples.
“You!” exclaimed the gentleman, taking a minute survey of Will’s nondescript toute ensemble, “Do you ever draw?”
“Sometimes,” replied Will, “when I can get a bit of charcoal, and a white wall. I was just kicked out of the Chronicle office for doing it.”
“Follow me,” said the gentleman, tapping him familiarly on the cheek.
Will needed no second invitation. Climbing one flight of stairs, he found himself in a small studio, lined on all sides by pictures; some finished and framed, others in various stages of progression. Pallets, brushes, and crayons, lay scattered round an easel; while in one corner was an artist’s lay figure, which, in the dim light of the apartment, Will mistook for the artist’s wife, whose presence he respectfully acknowledged by a profound bow, to the infinite amusement of his patron.
Mr. Lester was delighted with Will’s naive criticisms on his pictures, and his profound reverence for art. A few days found him quite domesticated in his new quarters; and months passed by swift as a weaver’s shuttle, and found him as happy as a crowned prince; whether grinding colors for the artist, or watching the progress of his pencil, or picking up stray crumbs of knowledge from the lips of connoisseurs, who daily frequented the studio; and many a rough sketch did Will make in his little corner, that would have made them open their critical eyes wide with wonder.
“What a foolish match!” Was an engagement ever announced that did not call forth this remark, from some dissenting lip? Perhaps it was a “foolish match.” Meta had no dower but her beauty, and Will had no capital but his pallet and easel. The gossips said she “might have done much better.” There was old Mr. Hill, whose head was snow white, but whose gold was as yellow and as plenty as Meta’s bright ringlets; and Mr. Vesey, whose father made a clergyman of him, because he didn’t know enough to be a merchant; and Lawyer Givens, with his carrotty head and turn-up nose, and chin that might have been beat; and Falstaff-ian Captain Reef, who brought home such pretty china shawls and grass cloth dresses, and who had as many wives as a Grand Turk. Meta might have had any one of these by hoisting her little finger. Foolish Meta! money and misery in one scale, poverty and love in the other. Miserable little Meta! And yet she does not look so very miserable, as she leans over her husband’s shoulder, and sees the landscape brighten on the canvass, or presses her rosy lips to his forehead, or arranges the fold of a curtain for the desired light and shade, or grinds his colors with her own dainty little fingers; no, she looks anything but miserable with those soft eyes so full of light, and that elastic step, and voice of music, that are inspiration to her artist husband. No; she thinks the “old masters” were fools to her young master, and she already sees the day when his studio will be crowded with connoisseurs and patrons, and his pictures bring him both fame and fortune; and then, they will travel in foreign countries, and sleep under Italia’s soft blue skies, and see the Swiss glaciers, and the rose-wreathed homes of England, and the grim old chateaux of France, and perhaps beard old Haynau in his den. Who knows? Yes; and Will should feast his eyes on beauty, and they’d be as happy, as if care and sorrow had never dimmed a bright eye with tears, since the seraph stood, with a flaming sword, to guard the gate of Eden. Hopeful, happy, trusting Meta! the bird’s carol is not sweeter than yours;—and yet the archer takes his aim, and with broken wing it flutters to the ground.
Yes: Meta was an angel. Will said it a thousand times a day, and his eyes repeated it when his tongue was silent. Meta’s brow, and cheek, and lips, and tresses were multiplied indefinitely, in all his female heads. Her dimpled hand, her round arm, her plump shoulder, her slender foot, all served him for faultless models.