“Well, William! You may as well take your Mr. Easton and go back to your New York at once.”
“What have I done?”
“Nothing; you have simply exhausted our resources; you have devoured with the same indiscriminate glance our Beauty and our Genius.”
“What do you mean?”
“That little thrush of a girl is the Rosa Bonheur of West Pekin.”
“Truly? Do I understand that the young lady does horse fairs for a living?”
“Not exactly, or not yet. She is the daughter of our landlady. She teaches school for a living, and last year she waited on table in vacation. I don’t know how long she may have been in the habit of doing horse fairs in secret, but she produced her first work in public this morning—or rather Mrs. Farrell did for her; the exhibition was too much for the artist’s modesty, and we no chance to congratulate her. She had done a head of Blossom, the Alderney cow, in charcoal.”
“Was it good?” asked Gilbert, indifferently.
“That was the saddest part of it: if it had been bad, I should have had some hopes of her, but it was really very promising; and it made my heart ache to think of another woman of talent struggling with the world. She would be so much happier if she had no talent. I suppose, now it’s out, she’ll be obliged by public opinion to take some sort of lessons, and go abroad, and worry commissions out of people. Honestly, don’t you think it’s a pity, William?”
“It isn’t a winning prospect,” said Gilbert. “What did you all say and do?”