Martin Gray’s fortune was made, and ever after was he a firm believer in presentiments, for the Sunrise had in very truth been the making of him. In the midst of his good fortune, the generous heart did not forget the poor child whose beauty had so materially aided his genius. Previous to his departure for the old world, he placed a well-filled purse in the hands of the mother, saying, “Your child is an extraordinary girl. This money will be sufficient to secure her a good education—pray do not neglect it, for she will be an honor and a great help to you some day. Promise me that you will keep her out of the street as much as is possible, and that you will send her to school. I am going abroad, when I come home again she will be many years older than now, nearly a woman. Give me your promise she shall be sent to school.”
“Yes, she shall go, and as to keeping her out of the street, I s’pose I might as well undertake to—Well, yes, I’ll try my hand at it.”
“Be kind to her!”
Martin traveled abroad; he studied in Italy—he studied in Germany—he journeyed through nearly all Europe. Among artists, and artist-patronizers, the success of his first exhibited picture was well-known, the Sunrise was every where commented upon, and the papers liked to talk of the young artist Martin Gray, of his skillful hand, and generous heart!
But during the years of labor and study spent abroad, his one great idea remained unaccomplished. The second picture which he had designed as a continuation of the Sunrise, was untouched. The imagination was not to be suffered to do the work in this instance either—but the second work, even as the first had been, should be a portrait.
Still his hands had not been idle. In Paris his studio (it was not there an attic!) became a point of interest and fashionable attraction, and in Hamburg the American artist dwelt neither in poverty nor obscurity. The walls of his rooms were adorned with evidences of his capabilities, and beside the honors heaped upon him, in a pecuniary point of view, his labors had made his fortune.
Years passed on, and Martin was at home again; at home and among a multitude of friends, though when seven years ago he sailed from the great city he might easily have counted the voices that came to bid adieu and God-speed. But fame and fortune wonderfully enhance the feeble interest felt in the once poor son of Genius—so Martin Gray proved it. His friendship was sought for as most honorable, his words were quoted, his dress and style imitated—fair ladies trilled his songs, (for he was something of a poet, too,) and as a “lion” the young exquisite was pronounced by fathers, mothers, and daughters, as perfect, charming, and altogether unexceptionable.
“Well, what in the way of amusements, Frank?” asked the artist, as arm-in-arm with a city gallant, he strolled along Broadway a few days after his arrival in New York.
“What! not heard yet that Alice gives a musical entertainment to-night? My good fellow you ‘argue yourself unknown’ by such unseemly ignorance,” gayly said his companion, the Hon. Francis Dundas.
“Indeed, I must confess to ignorance; who is this great singer, Alice—some newly risen star, is she not?”