"Where the charm and delightsomeness come in, I must say I do not pretend to see! An old room, with its low rafters stained black with smoke, and a long earthenware stovepipe running through it and threatening the life of those who pass under it!—an old stove surrounded by—I will admit—the brightest bits of copper, and brass, and tin that any housewife could boast—and a squatty little table piled up with carrots, and onions, and cabbages! You, I suppose, will be wanting to paint it next!"
"I want to paint it now, at once, this minute!" cried Ethel. "My fingers fairly itch. I want to paint those copper cans, and brass kettles, and iron pots with exactly this light upon them—and those vegetables, too! Oh, if I only could, while the impression is so fresh and strong upon me!"
"Well, so you can! you have only to fetch your easel and box and begin at once."
"But I have not got permission, and there is no one here to ask!"
"No matter at all about that! These peasants are the most amiable beings on earth. I have come to understand them very well. Go to work and do your picture, and I promise to make everything right when the family returns."
Urged by Florence, Ethel, who was really longing to make this picture, ran back to the little inn for her box and easel, and was soon at work, sketching in her picture rapidly, with an absorbed face, while Florence sat by her and watched its progress and prepared herself to explain things on the return of the family.
Ethel sat at her easel in the center of the old, low-roofed room, her scarlet cap flung on the floor beside her and her golden head shining tenderly under the smoky rafters. Her picture seemed to grow by magic, and as she brought out the brilliant polish of metal on the old vessels, and the soft bloom of vegetation upon the cabbages and carrots, etc., on the table beneath, she was feeling that triumph of achievement which sometimes comes to reward a painstaking artist for much discouragement.
So absorbed was she that she did not notice Florence when she rose, at the end of about two hours, and slipped quietly out of the house. She had seen the family returning, and she went to meet them. Her explanation, graciously and smilingly given, was received in the same spirit, and the two women and several children had soon filed noiselessly into the rear of the room and stood there, silent and delighted, watching the progress of the young artist's work. Florence had given them some coins, which to their frugal minds seemed an inordinate price to pay for the privilege accorded, and they were evidently in high good humor.
Presently Ethel, in a pause of her breathless interest, happened to turn her head and catch sight of them. She had a brush between her white teeth, but she smiled radiantly, and, taking it out, came forward to greet them. She felt, however, a certain hesitation as to how to deal with this strange people, and was glad to accept the word of Florence that she had made everything right, and to express her thanks, merely. At the same time she offered to stop work, in order that the details of her study might be put into more active use. But the women protested, declaring that dinner could wait until the picture was done, and showing such evident desire that she should not interrupt her work, that she consented to go on a little longer.
"But why does she not paint the Holy Mother and the Blessed Child, if she can paint like that?" said one of the women aside to Florence. "My nephew, Anton Wald, is a painter. He made the picture of the Holy Family on the outside of our house, but he would not paint such things as kettles and cabbages! He is the finest painter in the whole valley, though he is angry if I say so, and sometimes he throws down his brush and will not paint again for months, because he says the pictures in his mind are beautiful, but that they are hideous when he puts them down. That is only his strange way, though, for his pictures are most beautiful, as you can see from the one on my house, and all the new head-marks in the church-yard are done by him, and some most beautiful andenken. The picture of Frau Muhlau's son, who was mashed under a great rock, is a lovely thing; the saints have mercy on his soul!" she added, reverently crossing herself.