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THK PORTRAIT AV MY UNCLE'S DINIXQ-R
vo my bed for six weeks. The first iime T cnme out
a he brought me here, ami making me sit down in
.;
id, 'Our Italian painter did not remore
than once in order to set to work. Look
art, and tell me if you do not recognize your own
s in Unit face ?' I positively shrieked, for the aboinina-
am ready.' 'Not so fast, mademoiselle not so ; fast,' cried
'
;ie de M ilpeire I must have ;
you dressed as a nymph,
and your hair slightly powdered, and in it sky-blue bows. '
'
Very well, mamma,' she answered, with a look of resignation.
'Go into your room with Boinet,' Madame de Malpeire con-
tinued, ' and while she dresses your hair I will get everything
'
here. I remained alone in the boudoir, and could not
Ao.Tc/fe Heloise. A. sentence in the preface of that work
d across my mind : 'The woman who will venture to read
this book is as good as lost.' 'Thank Heaven,' I thought to
myself, 'we have no St. Preuxhere.' I was too yonng, too
thoughtless, too much in love, to make any more serious reflections
on this discovery. I put back the volume in its place,
only regretting that chance had happened to throw it in Mile,
de Malpeire's way.
' ' Madame de Malpeire, like all persons who are habitually
idle, was wonderfully active when once she hit upon something
to do. Under her superintendence the little room was transformed
into a kind of studio, and she sent for the box of
able but for tho art Boinei of improving their flavor
with sugar and wine. She prepares cherries for me in the name
lien it is the .-eason for it. That woman is a perfect
ire. She has neat, handy ways of doing tilings which
make her services invaluable. I wanted her to have married
some peasant in the village, whom I could have made an upper
sen-ant after she had polished him up a little ; but she could
never make up her mind to marry one of tnose clownish fel-
. tch had actually painted me in oils, and besides that ho
had the beautiful idea of dressing me up like a Koman or a
Turk, or I don't know what, with a yellow drapery around my
and on my head a sort of turban, and no powder. I told
tlic Miiron I could not bear to see myself in that dress, even in
n picture, and that, with his permission, I would send that
horrid daub into the lumber room. It was accordingly carried
.Irs, but the frame rsmained where it was, and Boinet bent
herself of sticking that print into it. I locked up the
box of crayons, in the hope that some other painter might
] haps come this way, but we never see those foreign artists
now, and so that affected Clarissa Harlowe still occupies my
place.'
"'Perhaps you would allow me,' I said,' 'to try and take
y-.iur likeness '
I can draw a little.'
; No, no. I thank you
.Midi, but it is too late now,' she answered with a sort of
melancholy vivacity. 'It is at twenty, my daughter's age,
that a woman should have her portrait taken it is her ; picture
'
I should like to see in that frame.' If she will sit to me,' I
'
exclaimed, enchanted with the hint, I can begin it to-morrow.
'
'Why not to-day ?' cried Madame de Malpeire 'we
;
uly to let my daughter know and she invited me ;' by a
sign to follow her into the boudoir. Mile, de Malpeire was
standing reading near a little bookcase, the old Bailie1 d'Hers,
of course. When we came in she quickly threw down
1 lie volume, but without any attempt at concealing it. When
her mother told her that I was going to take her portrait, she
evinced neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction, but carelessly
twist ing up her fair long curls, she answered, laconically, 'I
lows.'
'Really, mamma," exclaimed Mile, de Malpeire, with a
sudden vivacity, 'it would have only been too great an honor
for her. Those clownish fellows, as you call them, are free independent
men, whereas her position is that of a menial. '
'O,
good Heavens !' Madame de Malpeire exclaimed, 'what is the
meaning of these fine phrases ? Where have you learnt this
nonsensical trash, my dear ? Let me tell you that Mile.
Boinet's excellent conduct and the refinement of her manuers
have raised her long ago above what you call a menial condition.
I beg to assure you that she would have lowered herself
greatly in the social scale by marrying a man inferior to her in
mind and education one of those boorish, stupid peasants
whom you call free independent men. '
Mile, de Malpeire colored violently at thia kind of reproof,
and hung down her head with a look of embarrassment and illconcealed
anger. I was surprised at her seeming so annoyed
at her mother's words, but my thoughts did not go any farther.
I ought to have understood by that time that the education
she had secretly given herself had created an impassable gulf
between us. I ought to have been more alarmed at the ideas
and feelings she sometimes expressed, and foreseen their ultimate
results. Yes, it would have been well for her and for me
if I had that day left the Castle of Malpeire, and given up all
thoughts of this perverse but too captivating girl; it might
have saved her from a terrible fate. But I remained, and her
doom was sealed."
CHAPTER VL
THE FEAST OF ST. LAZABE.
ready
resist the temptation of de Malpeire
ascertaining what book it was Mile.
had been M. de Champaubert paused after he had uttered these last
reading. I found it was Rousseau's
words, and looked up at the picture.
while sadly and intently at the lovely
After gazing for a little
face, which seemed to
listen to him with a smile, he went on :
"
I took possession of my newly arranged studio, and in
three or four days finished that portrait. "
" And you signed it with your initials," added Dom Ge'ru-
eac
" I have often noticed that there was an M. and a C. at
;
"
the corner near the heading.
" How carefully you must have examined that anonymous
picture !" M. de "
Champaubert replied ; yet it is by no
means a chef d' ceuvre."
"No, certainly not," my uncle answered with his usual
simplicity.
"But it was an excellent likeness," the Marquis subjoined,
" and was, therefore, of course reckoned perfect. I will not
crayons, the sheets of vellum, and all the things which were to
originally used by the Italian artist. Mile, de Mal-
. in the dress and coiffure her mother had desired, looked
on with indifference at all these preparations. When they were
completed she said it was too late to begin that day that I
should not have time to sketch her portrait. 'You are right,
my dear,' her mother replied; 'and, moreover, it is time for our
/. King the bell, that Boinet may send us up cakes and
fruit." The fruit Madame la Baroune spoke of was a plateful
>se little yellow peaches which I ate this morning with so
much relish. Mile. Boinet took them up one after another on
:,int of a fork, a- ''ling and cutting them in quar-
. ith a silver knit'c, she poured upon them sugar and wine.
;ie de Malpeire helped me to some of this compote, and
. ith a sigh: 'This is the only fruit which ripeus here. '
1 1
Ml, 'I answered, with '
perfect sincerity. It is
.iud of you to say so,' she treat you, my
replied; 'they would not be eat-
dear Thomas, to a description of all the feeling's
of my infatuated heart during three or four days which were
spent in contemplating that lovely face, and in striving to reproduce
on paper the nearest possible resemblance of those
beautiful features. The sitting generally lasted several hours,
for the Baronne was in a state of restless impatience to see my
work finished. As soon as she was up, she came to the
boudoir, where I was already established, and immediately
sent for her daughter. Mile, de Malpeire then made her appearance,
dressed as you see her there, with her hair arranged
in that way. She walked leisurely into tho room, and sitting
down at a little distance from tho table, drew herself up in her
stiff corsage, fixing her eyes upon me with a defiant expression,
crossed her beautiful arms on her chest, and remained
immovable in the posiliou I had prescribed.
"Madame ite Malpi-iiv, when I began to draw, used to
cry