"An admirable summary. You have listened well. But tell me now,—what do you think? Or do you wander like a little brook, without any will of your own, between such banks as Fate may hem you in withal?"
"I will be frank with you. Until last season, I never had a serious, definite purpose in life. I fell in love then with the most charming of country-girls."
"I know," interrupted Easelmann, in a denser cloud than usual,—"a village Lucy,—'a violet 'neath a mossy stone, fair as a star when only one,'—you know the rest of it. She was fair because there was only one."
"Silence, Mephistopheles! it is my turn; let me finish my story. I never told her my love"——
"'But let concealment'"——
"Attend to your pipe; it is going out. I did look, however. The language of the eyes needs no translation. I often walked, sketched, talked with the girl, and I felt that there was the completest sympathy between us. I knew her feelings towards me, as well, I am persuaded, as she knew mine. I gave her no pledge, no keepsake; I only managed, by an artifice, to get her daguerreotype at a travelling saloon."
Easelmann laughed. "Let me see it, most modest of lovers!"
"You sha'n't. Your evil eye shall not fall upon it After I came to Boston, I took a room and began working up my sketches"——
"Where I found you brushing away for dear life."
"I meant to earn enough to go abroad, if it were only for one look at the great pictures of which I have so often dreamed. Then I meant to come back"——