“Ah!” The girl contemplated her own work with glowing eyes. “That's the haunting resemblance I felt but couldn't catch when I first saw my model.”
“It isn't in most of these.”
“My fault. It must have been there, underneath, all the time.”
“Hm! You consider those pretty faithful studies?”
“As faithful as I could make them. But I haven't been able to catch and fix the face. It's most provoking,” she added fretfully, “but I'm constantly having to remodel.” Before she had finished, the elderly woman's swift hands were busy with the figures, manipulating them here and there, until they were presently set out in a single row with the sketches interspersed. “Read from left to right,” she said curtly. “Is not that the order of time in which the work was done?”
“Pure magic!” breathed the girl. “How could you know?”
“How could I help but know? Child, child! Can't you see you have the biggest subject ready to your hand that any artist could pray for?” The girl looked her question mutely. “The man is making himself. How? God knows—the God that helps all real work. Look! See how the lines of grossness there”—she touched the first figure in her marshaled line —“have planed out here.” The swift finger found a later study. “How could you miss it! The upbuilding of character, resolve, manhood, and with it all something gentler and finer softening it. You have half-done it, but only half, because you have not understood. Why have you not understood?”