CHILDREN'S ART-SERIES. 
 LL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 BY 
 
 LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "BOURBON LILIES," u IN THE SKY-GARDEN," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY J. WELLS CHAMPNEY 
 
 ("CHAMP"). 
 
 BOSTON : 
 LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY. 
 1878. 
 
Copyright, 1877. 
 By LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, & CO. 
 
 University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
 Cambridge. 
 
TO MY FATHER. 
 
 r 
 
 » 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 The Palette 3 
 
 Ultramarine. 
 
 Over the Sea 23 
 
 Terra Verde. 
 
 Christmas Greens 41 
 
 Rose Madder. 
 
 The Magician 59 
 
 Venetian Red. 
 
 Venice Gardens 83 
 
 Vermilion. 
 
 War Paint . . . , 11 1 
 
 Malachite Green. 
 
 The Marvellous Marbles 125 
 
 Silver White. 
 
 The Christ-Child of the Louvre 151 
 
 Naples Yellow. 
 
 Neapolitan Oranges . . • 165 
 
 Yellow Ochre. 
 
 Gold and Glory 179 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Raw Sienna. 
 
 Fresco-Christians and Fresco-Bandits 201 
 
 Burnt Sienna. 
 
 The Story of a Donkey . . . . . . . 221 
 
 Van-Dyck Brown. 
 
 Two Dogs of Van Dyck 243 
 
 Bitumen. 
 
 The Papyrus Roll 263 
 
 Prussian Blue. 
 
 The Clock and the Fountain 287 
 
 Ivory Black. 
 
 The Last of the Tales 3°7 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE PALETTE. 
 
 TORIES and pictures, it was 
 all the doing of the two Paint 
 Bogies ; sometimes Carrie told 
 the stories and Tint made the 
 illustrations, but more frequent- 
 ly Tint was the speaker, while 
 the other Paint Bogy drew cari- 
 catures and made fun of all 
 that Tint said. Not a very 
 polite way of conducting her- 
 self, but the Paint Bogies were 
 both merry little bodies, and never got provoked 
 with each other. 
 
 Now, you might reason all day, and prove never 
 so conclusively that there are no such things as 
 Bogies in general, never have been, never will be, 
 never ought to be, and never can be; and particu- 
 
4 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 larly that there never were, are not, never will, ought 
 to, can, might, could, would, or should be Paint 
 Bogies in particular, — and Flossy and Ruby might 
 not contradict you, for they were well-bred children; 
 but at the end of your demonstration do you sup- 
 pose they would have been convinced? 
 
 Not the least bit in the world ! For had they not 
 both seen them? It could not have been a dream, 
 for it was not at all probable that they should have 
 had the same dream at the same time. 
 
 Flossy Tangleskein's testimony taken alone would 
 
 not have been the most 
 reliable thing in the world, 
 for the Tangleskeins were 
 a family with active im- 
 aginations, and a heredi- 
 tary tendency * to mix 
 things up. There was 
 Grandma Tangleskein, 
 just the dearest and best 
 old lady that ever lived. 
 There was nothing she enjoyed so much as listening 
 to sermons and repeating at the dinner-table what the 
 minister had said ; but no one could have recognized 
 
THE PALETTE. 
 
 5 
 
 Grandma Tangleskein's report. If the minister him- 
 self had heard her version of his discourse, he 
 would have thought, " That is an excellent sermon ; 
 I wonder who preached it." The truth was that 
 Grandma listened attentively to the text, and then 
 her thoughts floated serenely away into a reverie of 
 how she would treat it if she were the minister. 
 Everything that any one said or did started Grandma 
 Tangleskein off in the same way. She was very 
 original without being in the least bit conscious of 
 it. She always gave some one else the credit for 
 each of her own bright ideas, and it was, perhaps not 
 
 signification 
 
 without some 
 
 that the little curls which 
 framed the smooth forehead, 
 within which so much think- 
 ing was done, always gave 
 Flossy the idea of a pair of 
 quotation marks. 
 
 To Grandpa Tangleskein 
 (whose portrait hung over 
 the piano) all the crooked things of this world were 
 made straight, for he had been dead these many 
 
 years. 
 
6 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Papa Tangleskein had a pretty clear head to begin 
 with, but he had been a prominent and conscientious 
 Republican since the formation of the party, and 
 now 
 
 Mamma Tangleskein was not carried away by her 
 imagination. Sermons, politics, if they entered at 
 one ear, went straight out at the other, without so 
 much as tying themselves into a knot or a single 
 refractory twist with a single idea in her brain. 
 Mamma Tangleskein was a most methodical body, 
 but she was remarkably absent-minded. She made 
 it a point, in order not to twist things up as the other 
 members of the family did, that she would only think 
 of one thing at a time. Unfortunately it took her 
 just twice as long to think of things, to classify them, 
 and place them in their proper divisions, as it did 
 for the things themselves to happen ; and so she 
 gradually fell behind, thinking of things that hap- 
 pened yesterday, the day before yesterday, last week, 
 week before last, last month, last spring, last year, 
 year before last, and so on; just like a clock that 
 keeps losing time, until her thinking got so dread- 
 fully old-fashioned, that she might almost as well not 
 have thought at all. 
 
THE PALETTE. 
 
 7 
 
 Then came Flossy, a bright-faced, sweet little girl, 
 with all sorts of loving thoughts and naughty incli- 
 nations, longings to be good, and disagreeable freaks, 
 stubborn wilfulness and repentant moods, battles with 
 hateful feelings, with alternate defeat and victory, a 
 peppery temper and an affectionate disposition, fits 
 of the sulks and generous impulses, — in short, the 
 most tangled-up character that ever an eleven-year- 
 old child possessed; and yet one that needed only 
 to have its bright threads placed on the magical reel 
 of wise and loving care to have them wound into 
 golden strands ready for the weaving of some beau- 
 tiful and perfect life pattern. 
 
 Ruby was Flossy 's almost inseparable friend and 
 playfellow. Ruby was a boy of course. Whoever 
 heard of a girl eleven years old whose favorite play- 
 mate was some other girl. Girls do fall in love with 
 each other, but not until they reach their teens, when 
 they begin to put up their hair and read novels and go 
 to boarding-school, and think that it isn't quite proper 
 to chew gum and like boys. Ruby, like all genuine 
 boys who have not yet begun to think that it is 
 manly to smoke cigars and to affect to look with 
 contempt on womankind, had a chivalrous liking 
 
8 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 for all girls, and a special admiration for girls like 
 Flossy. 
 
 Flossy's home was a city house with a brownstone 
 front. Ruby lived just across the street, in the top- 
 most flat of the Grand Mogul Hotel. His father's 
 name was on the little silvered doorplate that cor- 
 responded to the silvered knob that rang a bell in 
 the fifth story. It read, — 
 
 (£. futbett* Po*e, gtrttet. 
 
 Ruby's name was E. Rubens Rose, too. What the E 
 stood for Flossy never cared to inquire; it might 
 have been Excelsior or Evaporation, and it would not 
 have hindered Ruby Rose from being just the nicest 
 boy in the whole world to her. She liked Ruby's 
 mother too, and she often climbed all those stairs 
 to see her, and when Mr. Rose was in special good 
 humor, or when he was not at home, she and Ruby 
 would play in the studio, for Mr. Rose had his stu- 
 dio in the front room instead of down town, where 
 those of most of the other artists were. It was a 
 large room with one great northern window. Mr. 
 
THE PALETTE. 9 
 
 Rose had chosen to be so very high up not because 
 he " felt himself above " other people or because he 
 liked to go up and down stairs, but the house over- 
 topped all others in the vicinity, and consequently 
 the light was not interfered with by shadows or re- 
 flections, which are a great annoyance to an artist 
 in his work. 
 
 The furnishing of this room, like that of studios gen- 
 erally, was peculiar. The object which first attracted 
 attention on entering was the great easel ; it occu- 
 pied the centre of the 
 apartment. Not that 
 there was anything re- 
 markably attractive in 
 this piece of mechan- 
 ism, but because it usu- 
 ally held some paint- 
 ing, — and Mr. Rose's 
 pictures were all of 
 them joys forever. At 
 one side of the easel 
 was a little platform 
 on rollers which served the children alternately as 
 pulpit, auctioneer's stand, or a train of cars. This 
 
 4 
 
IO 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 was the " model stand," and here Flossy had seen, 
 on some days, beautiful ladies, and sometimes ladies 
 who were not beautiful, . richly dressed, sitting for 
 portraits for which they were glad to pay large sums, 
 and on other days little street boys, ragged and dirty, 
 — some Italian organ-grinder's handsome child with 
 his tambourine or monkey, or a comical little darkey 
 with rows of glittering teeth and great expressive 
 eyes. Flossy wondered how they could afford to 
 have their portraits painted, until she noticed one 
 day that Mr. Rose paid them for sitting as models 
 Sometimes instead of a living model Mr. Rose placed 
 his jointed lady upon the. stand. She was like the 
 ones Flossy had seen in the shop windows, only not 
 nearly so beautiful, and her chignon did not in the 
 least compare with that of the bride in the great 
 " Hair Emporium." She was only a great wooden 
 doll with a very ugly and battered face ; but some- 
 times Mr. Rose unlocked a handsome carved cabi- 
 net, and took from its drawers wonderful costumes 
 of velvet and embroidered satin and heavy gold- 
 flowered brocade, with laces which made his fash- 
 ionable lady sitters throw up their white hands in 
 envy and admiration, and when his jointed lady 
 
THE PALETTE. 
 
 was dressed in them to his satisfaction, Mr. Rose 
 would sit down and paint a queen or some ^reat 
 
 princess. Flossy never forgot how vexed he once 
 was, when his picture was nearly done, because dur- 
 ing his absence she had dressed herself up in the 
 
I 2 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 jointed lady's finery. " I shall never" get those folds 
 again," he had exclaimed in despair, and then as he 
 caught sight of the quaint little figure before him, 
 with her soft flaxen hair floating down over the 
 rich costume, he had thrown his jointed lady into 
 a corner and lifted her to the model-stand, and with 
 the exclamation, " you must pay me for this piece 
 of mischief, little lady ! " had turned his former pic- 
 ture to the wall and painted her instead. 
 
 There was no carpet on the studio floor, but visit- 
 ors caught their feet occasionally in handsome Per- 
 sian and Algerian rugs. Portfolios of photographs, 
 etchings and engravings, with scrap-books of sketches, 
 canvasses, and quantities of artistic rubbish were scat- 
 tered about in picturesque disorder. A carved ebony 
 table occupied one side of the room, and a gaily 
 striped Spanish cloak was thrown half across it by 
 way of table-cloth. The gaslights on each side of 
 the real Venetian mirror were cast to represent twisted 
 snakes, and when lighted the serpent mouths darted 
 out tongues of flame. A very handsome old clock, 
 uhich Mr. Rose said was in the style of the Re- 
 naissance, stood against the wall ; on one side of it 
 hung an imitation silver dish copied from the work 
 
4 
 
 THE PALETTE, 
 
 13 
 
 of Benvenuto Cellini, and most beautifully embossed 
 and engraved; on the other side was a great plate of 
 eels imitated from some costly Palissy dish. Across 
 one end of the room hung a curtain of ancient tapes- 
 try from the looms of Ghent, the faded figures dim 
 and ghost-like through the mist of years. Curious 
 people generally lifted this cur- 
 tain to see what was behind it, Jj 
 and were startled by a ghastly j'^ 
 skeleton placed here for the ex- 
 press purpose of frightening 
 them. This, with some ugly 
 Japanese idols, bowls, and jars, 
 which decorated the tops of 
 several cabinets, completed the furnishing of the 
 apartment. It seemed like an enchanted palace to 
 Flossy, everything was so strange and wonderful, so 
 different from the commonplace comfort and even 
 luxury of her own home, where the furniture of the 
 parlors had cost as much as that of Mr. Rose's studio, 
 but where there was nothing from the great pier-glass 
 to the costly lace curtains and bronze mantel orna- 
 ments, that was not exactly like the appointments 
 of every other set of parlors in their block. She 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 regarded Mr. Rose as some mighty magician, like 
 the geniis in the story of Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, 
 but she had half pitied as well as feared him ever 
 since he had told her that it was certain that art- 
 ists could never go to heaven, for the Mohammedans 
 believed so, and the followers of the Commander of 
 the Faithful were forbidden to 
 make a picture of any human being, 
 under penalty of being required in 
 the next world to create souls for 
 every face and form which they 
 had made. It was long ago that 
 Mr. Rose had told her this, and 
 now that she was eleven years old 
 doubts had crept in as to the power of the Koran 
 to deny any one an entrance to heaven. But the 
 old awe and mystery, the feeling that the studio was 
 fairy ground, still clung to her, and she would not 
 have been surprised to have seen anything extraor- 
 dinary happen here. 
 
 In describing the furnishing of the studio I have 
 forgotten to mention the most important object of 
 all, — the artist's palette. It lay on his great paint- 
 box with a number of brushes and a slender " mahl- 
 
THE PALETTE. 
 
 stick" (or rest upon which Mr. Rose supported his 
 wrist when painting) thrust through the opening for 
 the thumb. The colors were arranged in little daubs 
 around its margin. Flossy thought it must be very 
 nice to mess in them, stirring the different soft tints 
 together with the thin yielding blade of the palette- 
 knife, but she never dared ask Mr. Rose to let her 
 try. 
 
 One dav when the artist was not at home and the 
 children had tired themselves out with play, they 
 sat down on the model-table to rest and think up 
 some new game. Close beside them lay a large sheet 
 of paper and a crayon-holder containing a bit of char- 
 coal, with which Mr. Rose 
 had begun a caricature for 
 one of the illustrated news- 
 papers, and the palette itself 
 lay temptingly near. ,j| 
 
 Flossy was too true a 
 daughter of Eve to resist. 
 She drew out one of the brushes and began to draw 
 connecting lines from one little mound of paint to 
 another. 
 
 " Stop ! " cried a commanding voice. Flossy looked 
 
i6 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 up expecting to see Mr. Rose, but no one had entered 
 the studio. "Did you speak, Ruby Rose?" she asked. 
 
 "No," replied the boy, "but you did; you said 
 stop! I heard you. You can't fool me." 
 " But I did n't," persisted Flossy. 
 " Of course she did n't," exclaimed the same voice. 
 Flossy looked frightened. 
 
 "Who are you, any how?" asked Ruby, stoutly. 
 9 " My name is Tint," said 
 
 hinged rulers now thrust themselves into a bladder 
 of Antwerp paint, and sprouted (that was Flossy's 
 word for it) at their extremities into two grotesque 
 hands, which lifted the palette and placed it as a 
 sort of head on the paint-bag, then it rose stiffly 
 upon a pair of paint-brush legs, and steadying it- 
 
 And then Flossy and 
 Ruby both saw them. It 
 was the palette who had 
 first spoken ; two brass- 
 
 the voice. 
 
 " And mine is Carica- 
 ture, Carrie for short," re- 
 marked another. " We are 
 the two Paint Bogies." 
 
THE PALETTE. 
 
 17 
 
 self with the " mahl-stick," struck a theatrical attitude 
 and addressed her, — " Don't you know that you must 
 not mix up these colors ? " 
 
 " Of course you must not," added the other small 
 voice, and Flossy looked about for the other Paint 
 Bogy. 
 
 " My sister Caricature, Carrie for short," said the 
 palette Bogy, first 'introducing himself as Tint. 1 
 There she stood, just where the crayon-holder had 
 been ; she wore an orange -colored polonaise, made 
 in the cuirass style, which was then fashionabfe; 
 on looking closer Flossy saw that it was really a 
 cuirass, and like the ancient suits of armor, was 
 made of brass. This queer garment was belted in 
 by two broad bands of the same material ; from under 
 this polonaise fell a skirt as black as charcoal, and 
 the queer little body had a face as perfectly white 
 as a lump of chalk. She was very slender, and re- 
 markably active, not remaining at rest for a single 
 instant, gliding backward and forward over the great 
 sheets of white paper with a steady skating move- 
 ment, and Flossy noticed that the curves which she 
 cut were not meaningless, for funny sketches out- 
 lined themselves in her track, and whenever she gave 
 
i8 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 a little spring into the air and began again it was 
 the signal that one of the sketches was completed. 
 
 " Don't you know," reiterated Tint, mechanically 
 lifting one arm and pointing to his face, which the 
 children now saw was ornamented nearly along its 
 whole circumference with a border of many colored 
 spots, which framed one cheek, arched his forehead, 
 and only stopped at his right ear, — " Don't you 
 know that 
 
 ' These be freckles, Fairy favors, 
 In these freckles lie their savors.'" 
 
 " What are savors ? " asked Ruby Rose. 
 
 " Stories," replied Tint, " and consequently Fairy 
 favors are fairy stories." 
 
 " Won't you please tell us some ? * begged Flossy. 
 
 " Certainly," replied Tint ; " but I am a Paint 
 Bogy, you know, and each of the stories locked up 
 in these paint-freckles is about Paint or Painters or 
 Paintings or something of the kind, and may be you 
 won't care to hear them." 
 
 " Drive on," said Ruby Rose. 
 
 " And I '11 illustrate," exclaimed Caricature, and 
 so she did ; all the while that Tint was speaking 
 she kept making her sketches, which Flossy gath- 
 
THE PALETTE. 
 
 l 9 
 
 ered up carefully as quickly as they were made, and 
 when her paper was covered supplied her with more. 
 Sometimes the sketches were very droll and as wide 
 from the subject-matter of Tint's discourse as could 
 well be imagined, and at other times they were as 
 serious as one could wish. She seemed to begin 
 with good intentions, and then — But you shall judge 
 for yourself, for here are sketches and stories just as 
 they were seen and heard, or just as they took place, 
 for the Paint Bogies had a power more wonderful 
 than that of telling — that of making them happen 
 — so that many of the stories in this book came 
 into the ordinary lives of the children, and were 
 lived and acted by Flossy Tangleskein and Ruby 
 Rose. 
 
ULTRAMARINE. 
 
 OVER THE SEA. 
 
 " Green is forsaken, 
 And yellow 's forsworn, 
 But blue is the sweetest 
 Color e'er worn," 
 
 ANG Flossy as she poked 
 over the snarl of ribbons and 
 bits of lace in the upper 
 drawer of her bureau, finally 
 selecting and drawing dex- 
 terously from the mass a piece 
 of turquoise gros-grain with 
 which to tie her flaxen braids, 
 and remembering as she did so that the color on 
 which the Paint Bogy had promised them a story 
 was ultramarine; the word, he said, meant "over 
 the sea," and the color was the bluest of blue. " I 
 wonder if he will tell it to us to-night," she thought, 
 for Flossy was invited to take dinner at the Rose's, 
 
24 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 and Ruby and she had predetermined on slipping 
 away to the studio after the meal and invoking the 
 Bogies. They had hardly done so when, to their 
 dismay, Mr. Rose walked into the studio accompan- 
 ied by Ruby's Uncle Wylde. The latter gentleman, 
 who was also an artist, went straight to Mr. Rose's 
 paint-box, and selecting a few colors, took up the 
 palette and proceeded to cover it with paint, or " set 
 it," as the artistic term is. Flossy was sure that she 
 saw a distressed expression on the palette's face which 
 had begun to humanize, and was now obliged to sink 
 back again into its usual appearance of woodenness ; 
 while Ruby asserted afterward that just as Uncle 
 Wylde put his thumb through the hole in the pal- 
 ette, which served the Paint Bogy as mouth, he 
 heard a choked voice, " Hear him." At any rate 
 they had no choice but to listen, for Uncle Wylde 
 was a great talker, and no sailor could tell more 
 interesting stories or loved to tell them, more than 
 he. 
 
 " How did it ever happen that you became an 
 artist, Uncle Wylde?" asked Ruby; "I should. think 
 you would have made a much better sea-captain or 
 commodore or pirate or something." 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 25 
 
 " I used to think so myself," replied Uncle Wylde, 
 as he deliberately spread the ultramarine in great 
 wavy lines upon a panel with his palette-knife, drag- 
 ging into it dashes of white and green until it began 
 to assume the appearance of the open sea, for Uncle 
 
 Wylde loved the sea as much as any sailor. He 
 was what is called a Marine Painter, and Ruby called 
 his pictures waterscapes to distinguish them from 
 the landscapes which his father sometimes painted. 
 "When I was a very small boy," continued Uncle 
 Wylde, " we lived in Camden in Maine. Not allowed 
 to go outside the yard, I used to run to its farthest 
 limit, climb the fence, and sit staring off at the 'big 
 sea-water' for hours at a time; the breezes seemed 
 to blow the salt spray into my blood and fill it with 
 
26 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 a sort of madness for the sea; every sail-boat that 
 went courtesying by appeared to signal and beckon 
 to me upon my forlorn perch ; I envied the very 
 clams that the women dug up with hoes upon the 
 beach, at least they had known what life was. My 
 mother told me that my first attempt at singing 
 was in trying to catch the song which a noisy sailor 
 roared out as he passed our house, but it was some 
 time before she recognized in the ' Four more bel- 
 lows, four more bellows,' which was my version of 
 what the sailor had sung, ( l ^ 
 any resemblance to the words 
 ' Foamy billows ' in the orig- 
 inal ditty. 
 
 " As I grew older and Y i$ 
 was allowed greater liberty, 
 I explored the coast for 
 miles, and was never so hap- j 
 py as when I was allowed 
 to make an excursion to *<^£. 
 Negro Head, or some other 
 of the islands lying near, for 
 the gulls' eggs with which the cliffs were stored, or 
 to Rockland, further down the bay, to see the ships 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 27 
 
 come in. I have now a small collection of sea-birds' 
 eggs made at Negro Head, and a model of a ship 
 neatly rigged, with every cord 
 in place and the Union Jack 
 flying from the top-gallant mast, 
 that I whittled under the super- 
 vision of an old man who had 
 once been a sailor, and who 
 picked up a living in some 
 wonderful way on the docks 
 at Rockland. I used to envy 
 him as he sansr, — 
 
 ' I 've been across the line 
 Where the sun will burn your nose off, 
 And I 've been in northern climes 
 Where the frost would bite your toes off.' 
 
 He told me where every ship came from, and I 
 soon became able to tell an East Indiaman at a 
 single glance. The sailors often brought back curi- 
 osities from China, Japan, and other eastern ports, 
 which they were anxious to sell, and I always saved 
 up my pocket-money for weeks before a visit to 
 Rockland, in order to invest in the cheaper of these 
 commodities, — red Guinea beans, shells, grotesque 
 
28 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 designs gaudily painted upon rice-paper, a small jar 
 of preserved ginger, or a box of Smyrna fig-paste. 
 After a time we moved away from Camden to an 
 inland city; my old life of freedom was at an end, 
 and I was now put to hard study. Father was 
 determined to make an artist of me, and I cared 
 more for drawing and painting than I really knew, 
 but I hated the confinement of school, and as soon 
 as my lessons were recited, I made all haste to get 
 them out of my head as thoroughly as possible by 
 resorting at once to the public library, where I bur- 
 ied myself in stories of pirates, of naval battles, arc- 
 tic explorers, wicked slave ships, blockade runners, 
 merchantmen or whalers; in short, anything with a 
 salty flavor, from Dr. Kane to Captain Kidd, or the 
 adventures of the Norsemen, Eric the Red, and Lei- 
 jor Thorwald Ericson. These old adventurers seemed 
 very noble to me with their scorn of the 'straw- 
 death' and love of the 'spear-death,' the expressive 
 names given by them to death in one's bed or upon 
 the field of battle. I had a step-mother too, and 
 although she was very kind and good to me, all my 
 favorite books agreed that step-mothers were perse- 
 cutors and tyrants ; the drop of salt water in my 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 2 9 
 
 blood kept up a perpetual ferment ; my father seemed 
 very cruel and unreasonable to insist on my study- 
 ing, and at length, when I was twelve years old, I 
 could stand it no longer, and I determined to run 
 away to sea. 
 
 " I remembered my old friend at the Rockland 
 docks who had helped me rig my little ship, and 
 I wrote to him requesting that he would find me a 
 position on some vessel bound on the longest voy- 
 age possible. My friend played me false, for he sent 
 the letter directly to my father who, if he had been 
 a narrow-minded man, would have put me face to 
 face with my offence, and have given me a good 
 whipping. My father did what was much better: 
 he knew that there was no teacher like experience, 
 and he left his business at a time when he could 
 ill be spared, to run down to Rockland and arrange 
 everything for me. He had a friend, an extensive 
 ship-owner, and he applied to him first to ascertain 
 the most humane sea-captain with whom he had 
 relations. There happened to be one just back from 
 a voyage who, while he was a strict disciplinarian, 
 was a Christian, and kept as sharp a lookout for 
 the moral and physical interests of his sailors as 
 
3o 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 he did that none of them should fail in his duty 
 to the ship or to him. With this man my father 
 had a long conversation, and it was agreed that 
 I was to have a taste of service before the mast 
 to show me the real privation and drudgery of a 
 seaman's life, without any of the abuse which so 
 frequently accompanies it. The captain promised 
 to write whenever occasion offered, and to keep him 
 posted as to my health and behavior throughout the 
 voyage. My father next called on the old sailor and 
 instructed him what to write in answer to my letter; 
 he then came home much relieved in mind, and no 
 suspicion as to the object of his trip ever occurred 
 to me. I fancied that he had gone to New York 
 on business, until years afterward, when he confessed 
 it all to me. A few days after my father's return 
 I received the letter which I had been expecting 
 impatiently for some time ; in another week a ship 
 would start for Smyrna, and now was my chance. 
 Smyrna, to my mind, meant fig-paste, and I was 
 wild with excitement and haste to be off. I remem- 
 ber that several times I was on the eve of dis- 
 closing my secret, but father and mother were both 
 delightfully unsuspecting. Mother treated me with 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 31 
 
 more than usual tenderness, and I was more than 
 usually unappreciative and ungrateful ; the tears would 
 start to her eyes and her voice would tremble 
 when I answered her roughly, and once she burst 
 into real sobs over her sewing, say- 
 ing, ' O Wylde, Wylde, if you only 
 knew how I really do love you.' My 
 heart misgave me then, but I pre- 
 tended not to hear her. She sewed 
 a great deal about this time, and 
 dark rings came around her eyes from sitting up 
 nights over her work. She was making me a sailor 
 suit of heavy navy-blue flannel, 'it would be so nice 
 for me to use camping out next summer,' she said, 
 but she hurried to get it done as though July had 
 come. She consulted me as to whether I would 
 have an anchor or a star worked in the corners 
 of the collar, and I chose the anchor, of course. 
 She also made me a money-belt, to wear next my 
 body, and suggested my changing to it the money • 
 in my tin savings-bank. Long afterward, when in 
 my hammock counting over my little store, I found 
 ten gold dollars sewn into the belt which I had not 
 placed there. My father gave me a neat little knap- 
 
32 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 sack, sketching-box with set of paints, and half a 
 dozen panels ; he meant that I should take them 
 with me, but I did not, though I often regretted 
 not having done so, for I saw many wonderful and 
 beautiful scenes which I would have liked to pic- 
 ture. 
 
 " I shall never forget the night that I ran away. 
 I slipped into my sailor suit, took my shoes and 
 the little bundle of things which I had tied up in 
 an old pocket-handkerchief in my hand, and stole 
 out of my window. Walking cautiously along the 
 
 sloping shed roof I 
 dropped as noiselessly 
 as I could to the 
 ground. I thought 
 that some one struck 
 a light in the house, 
 
 and I fled like the wind, fearing that I was about 
 to be detected and brought back. If I could have 
 • seen how my step-mother, startled by the slight 
 noise L made, crept up to my chamber and wept 
 and prayed over my untouched bed, over the Bible 
 which she had hoped I would take, but which I 
 did not, over the scorned arid abused school-books 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 33 
 
 and paints, and over every article of clothing that 
 had belonged to her wayward boy ! 
 
 " The sea is a hard schoolmaster ; there was little 
 of the romance and freedom which I had anticipated, 
 and a great deal of drudgery and downright slavery 
 which I had not in the least expected. Physically 
 and mentally I was a delicately constituted child, 
 and body and mind revolted at the coarseness with 
 which they now came in contact. There was real 
 
 danger too, — storms for which 
 the only possible ending 
 seemed death. Sometimes 
 _^ in horrible 
 
 nightmares I 
 seem to be 
 tossed again by 
 one of those 
 storms, and then I can realize the meaning of the 
 scriptural words, ' the blackness of darkness forever.' 
 There were moments too, when I was in great dan- 
 ger of my life. I shall never forget one narrow 
 escape. 
 
 " We had left our cargo at Smyrna, where we had 
 taken on another for England, and were to load 
 
34 . ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 again at Liverpool for America. We had turned 
 Capes Finisterre and Ortegal, and were bearing away 
 from the northern coast, when an awful storm arose 
 just as we were opposite the throat of the Bay of 
 Biscay. These waters are noted for their stormy 
 character. When a little boy, in Camden, I had 
 learned from the sailors to sing, — 
 
 1 Now 'dashed upon the billow 
 
 Our opening timbers creak, 
 Each fears a watery pillow ' ; 
 
 and 
 
 1 To cling to slippery shrouds 
 
 Each breathless seaman crowds, ^ 
 
 As she lay 
 
 Till the day 
 In the Bay of Biscay O.' 
 
 Even when seen from the shore there is something 
 frightful here in the might of the ocean. 
 
 " The only safe harbor during storms is St. Jean 
 de Luz, where nature has thrown a breakwater half- 
 way across the bay. Even here the sea encroaches 
 slowly upon the land ; at low water you see the 
 ruins of the former city stretching out into the At- 
 lantic. The sea shows them to us as though to 
 remind us of its power, and then rolls in a great 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 35 
 
 jealous wave that covers them again from our sight. 
 At Biarritz the Emperor Napoleon endeavored to 
 form an artificial breakwater. Millions were expend- 
 ed, huge boulders, weighing many tons, were sunk 
 in a line, but the sea played with them as though 
 they were pebbles, and several were carried by the 
 tremendous surf over a pier as high as a house. 
 Biarritz and St. Jean de Luz are not far from each 
 other; they are the last seaport towns in France, 
 and lie just in the corner of the Bay of Biscay. 
 We were opposite them and not quite out of sight 
 of land, when the storm struck us. As the sun 
 went down the sky was awful to look at ; the clouds 
 burned like iron in a smelting furnace, and the heav- 
 ens were piled high with them. The waves, too, 
 were full of flame reflections, — broken brands of 
 crimson, and sparks of orange and pink. The wind 
 was freshening from the west, and the crew put forth 
 all their efforts to reach land before nightfall. Dark- 
 ness came upon us ; the land was there, a long dark 
 streak, but we dared not make directly for it, for 
 fear of finding ourselves before the terraced and em- 
 battled shore of Biarritz. The clouds were inky 
 now, and were fast blackening the whole sky. Great 
 
36 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 swells of water raced past the ship like schools of 
 whales. I was talking with a sailor on the forward 
 part of the deck, when one of the sea-monsters reached 
 out a powerful foam-fringed paw and swept me from 
 the deck. In this terrible abyss, drowning, as I then 
 thought myself, one thought flashed through my 
 mind, ' God be merciful to me, a sinner.' At that 
 instant I felt myself saved ; the same wave which 
 had torn me from the ship, at its next upheaval 
 carried me swiftly forward by the side of the vessel, 
 and the man at the stern caught me as I was pass- 
 ing and drew me on board. Soon after a wan light 
 was shed by the rising moon, and the man at the 
 lookout recognized before us, not the stony wall of 
 Biarritz, but the Rocher of Sainte Barbe, and the 
 lighthouse of the safe harbor of St. Jean de Luz. 
 
 " This was my last as well as first voyage as a 
 sailor. Even these dreadful experiences could not 
 efface my love for the sea, but I had learned to 
 distinguish between the sea itself and a seaman's 
 life. I had discovered, too, that in common with 
 moody young ladies, the sea was subject to fits of 
 rage which rendered admiration of her as a lady- 
 love altogether safer and pleasanter than the closer 
 
OVER THE SEA. 
 
 37 
 
 intimacy of wedded life. And the sea is still my 
 lady-love. I spend my time in studying her moods, 
 and in making records. No one appreciates her 
 smiles more than myself, and I can almost sympa- 
 thize with her when she lashes herself into a passion, 
 since I am no longer within reach of her fury. I 
 have many rivals in her good graces, for the list of 
 marine painters is a long one, and they are happier, 
 every one, than the jolliest tar, since it is their brush 
 and not their ship that glides 
 
 1 O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, 
 Their thoughts as boundless, and their souls as free.' " 
 
TERRA VERDE. 
 
TERRA VERDE. 
 
 CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 ?HE acquaintance began at the Flower 
 Mission. Flossy had gone down to 
 it with Ruby Rose's mother, for the 
 Mission was one of Mrs. Rose's par- 
 ticular pets. She loved flowers, and 
 had a grand place to cultivate them, 
 "just as good a place as the hang- 
 ing gardens of Babylon," she used 
 to say. The tin roof of a house one 
 story lower than their flat stretched 
 for quite a distance just under her 
 dining-room windows. The owner of 
 the roof, in consideration of a regular rent, had given 
 Mrs. Rose permission to have large boxes filled with 
 earth placed here in which to cultivate flowers. A 
 carpenter cut the dining-room windows down to the 
 floor, and then with a step or two it was an easy 
 
42 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 thing to walk down into Mrs. Rose's garden. A 
 high cornice formed a sort of balustrade, so that it 
 was perfectly safe to walk here. This was retired 
 enough, for, as I have told you, the house in which 
 the Roses had taken the topmost flat was higher 
 than any others in the neighborhood, so that there 
 were no windows but their own to overlook the 
 garden. Here Mrs. Rose worked among her flow- 
 ers ; when winter came she gave away all for which 
 she could not find room on a large flower-stand, and 
 through the summer it was remarkable how many 
 basketfuls went to the Flower Mission. Among the 
 children who waited about the Mission door, hungry- 
 eyed, for the baskets of beauty that went 
 and came, was little Hilary O'Hologan. 
 She was very neat and clean ; the scant 
 calico dress was redolent with strong yel- 
 low soap ; a pair of old gaiters were laced 
 neatly over her clean, but stockingless 
 feet; and her fiery red hair, thoroughly 
 combed, was drawn tightly back from her 
 face into a little knob at the back of her 
 head ; the face itself was spotless, except 
 for the freckles that bridged her small, upturned nose. 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 43 
 
 She touched Flossy s arm timidly as she went up 
 stairs. " If yer plaze, Miss," she said, " wud yer be 
 afther asking if it 's a shmall bit of shamrock they 've 
 got. It 's me mither's birthday, and it 's minding 
 her of the ould country I 'd be afther doin'." 
 
 " I '11 see what I can do for you," replied Flossy. 
 
 " Just what is shamrock?" asked the lady to whom 
 Flossy preferred Hilary's request. 
 
 " I suppose our common white clover comes the 
 nearest to it of anything we have in this country," 
 replied Mrs. Rose. 
 
 "Well, luckily we have just received a quantity 
 of it. A box of flowers came this morning from 
 Wisdom with a letter written by a Mrs. Stockstill 
 on behalf of a society of girls called the Venetians; 
 she says that a member of their society is in Bos- 
 ton, and has written them about the Mission. I 
 wonder who it can be. The flowers are beautiful, 
 and they are packed in moist white clover. Here, 
 little girl, you can make a knot of them for the 
 child at the door." 
 
 Flossy tied up a great bouquet of the sweet, heavy- 
 headed clover, massing it in plenty of the triplicate 
 leaves, and blushing as she thought that it was all 
 
44 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 owing to the society of which she had been a mem- 
 ber during her last summer in the country that she 
 could give the child the pleasure. Mrs. Rose ascer- 
 tained that she lived in Emerald-Isle Place, a back 
 street near Flossy s home. 
 
 At their last talk with the Paint Bogies, Tint had 
 remarked that the next color would be Terra Verde, 
 and when Flossy had asked what that meant, had 
 replied, Green Earth. It had seemed to her then 
 that a story on this color must be one about Ire- 
 land, the Emerald Isle, and now that the name came 
 up again, in that strange recurrent way that odd 
 names have of tumbling against you repeatedly when 
 you have met and thought about them for the first 
 time, she determined to be wide awake, for perhaps 
 she would find her story acted out in real life, in- 
 stead of told. One day Flossy set out to hunt up 
 Hilary. The tenement was easily found, for it was 
 on a corner over a pawnbroker's shop, and there 
 was a conspicuous sign above one window: — 
 
 hous cleanin Taken in 
 by misses Ohollogan, 
 also washing & Irening 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 45 
 
 Flossy wondered how Mrs. O'Hollogan could pos- 
 sibly take in house-cleaning, but she had not time 
 to puzzle her head over it, for that remarkable wo- 
 man had been actively engaged in sweeping down 
 her front stairs, and now stood upon the doorstep, 
 broom in hand. Flossy wondered 
 whether, when out of work, she al- 
 ways stood there, a sort of adver- 
 tisement in effigy of her profession, 
 like the wooden Indian before the 
 cigar store. It would have been a 
 good idea, for few housekeepers 
 could have resisted being " taken 
 in " by the active-appearing, smil- 
 ing woman, and the vista of cleanly -^5^5 
 scrubbed hall and stairs behind her. 'S^^t 
 
 " Are you Hilary O'Hollogan s mother ? " asked 
 Flossy. 
 
 " Bless your swate soul, and it 's Hilary O'Hollo- 
 gan's mother that I am," replied Mrs. O'Hollogan. 
 
 " Mamma wants to hire a little girl to take care 
 of my brother," said Flossy, "and I came to see if 
 you would let Hilary come." 
 
 This was another instance of Mrs. Tangleskein's 
 
4 6 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 old-fashioned method of thinking; she was now just 
 six years behindhand. When Flossy 's brother was 
 a baby there had been considerable difficulty finding 
 a nurse for him, Mrs. Tangleskein not having time 
 to attend to the matter. Her mind was then much 
 exercised as to whether she should scrape the old 
 towels into lint for the soldiers, although the war 
 had come to an end three years before. She had 
 reached this question at last, and despite the fact 
 that Herbert was a great boy and went to the prim- 
 ary school, the good woman was hunting everywhere 
 for a little girl to take care of an infant. She de- 
 pended a great deal upon Flossy to set her right, half 
 aware, no doubt, of the tardiness with which she 
 reached conclusions; but just now there were other 
 ways in which a little girl like Hilary could be made 
 useful in the household, and Flossy, sure that she 
 would find her proper place on arrival, did not put 
 her mother all wrong by trying to put her right. So 
 Hilary came ; her principal occupation was answering 
 Aunt Toothaker's bell, but she speedily became a 
 favorite with all members of the family. There was 
 one subject of which Hilary never tired, and on which 
 she would descant whenever opportunity was afforded 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 47 
 
 her, and that was the pawnbrokers shop under her own 
 home. According to Hilary, there never was a Jew so 
 pitiless or so mercenary, so wicked or so rich, as Mr. 
 Aaronson, and no museum of Fine Arts or curi- 
 osities which com- 
 bined the attrac- 
 tions of his shop. 
 In the intervals of 
 scrubbing down the 
 front stairs with 
 sand and a scrub- 
 bing-brush, so well 
 used that nothing 
 was left of it but 
 the back, Hilary had made character studies of the 
 people who passed in and out under the three gilt 
 balls. 
 
 Grandma Tangleskein was more interested in these 
 stories than any one else in the family. She had read 
 somewhere of a society for redeeming the pledges 
 of poor people who were unable to rescue articles, 
 valuable in themselves or from association, and for 
 which they had received very inadequate loans. 
 " What man, so inefficient a being, has done, most 
 
4 8 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 certainly woman may do," said Grandma Tangle- 
 skein, as she pinned her best set of false curls care- 
 fully into her company cap, and smoothed the creases 
 out of her black silk mantilla preparatory to making 
 a few calls with Flossy. Their first visit was to 
 Mrs. O'Hollogan, from whom she obtained a list of 
 
 lines and dots somewhat resembling the musical staff 
 and notes. Mr. Aaronson had a quantity of shells 
 scattered about the place, a fact which Grandma's sharp 
 
 people who, that wor- 
 thy woman knew, were 
 unwilling customers 
 of Mr. Aaronson. 
 She next made a tour 
 of inspection through 
 the pawnbroker's shop 
 under pretence of be- 
 ing very fond of shells, 
 having a certain rare 
 one in mind which 
 she wished to pur- 
 chase, — a little mu- 
 sica, so called be- 
 cause decorated with 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 49 
 
 eyes had discovered on entering, and he now pro- 
 ceeded to place before her a trunk-tray filled with 
 a collection brought from foreign ports by an old 
 sailor, and pawned by his wife during one of his 
 long voyages. The sight of these made Flossy think 
 of Mr. Wylde Rose and his stories of the sea. There 
 was no musica among them. When Mr. Aaronson 
 popped his head into his window to look over the 
 objects displayed there, Grandma Tangleskein made 
 a rapid survey of the contents of his shop, noting 
 many of the articles, and the numbers attached to 
 them. This call deepened the impression made by 
 Hilary, and, determined upon action, that very after- 
 noon Grandma Tangleskein, Mrs. Rose, and a few 
 other kindred spirits organized a Ladies' Loan Soci- 
 ety, its motto being, " Whoso giveth to the poor, 
 lendeth to the Lord." The society received the pawn- 
 tickets from their holders, redeemed the articles, and 
 then made out new tickets. These were not limited 
 to any specified time, but left the holders free to 
 redeem them whenever they chose or were able, 
 without the dread that, meantime, the article might 
 be sold beyond their power of recovery. When- 
 ever it was preferred, the society was ready to pur- 
 
5° 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 chase the pawned article at or above its real value. 
 The organization grew in favor among the patrons 
 of Mr. Aaronson, and it was surprising to see how lit- 
 tle money was expended, how quickly it was returned, 
 and how much pleasure was given and real good 
 done. Toward Christmas the ladies found that they 
 had a considerably larger sum contributed than had 
 been expended in the work ; there was also a large 
 stock of articles in their possession which they hard- 
 ly knew what to do with. They decided at last to 
 have a Christmas dinner and tree at Mrs. O'Hol- 
 logan's rooms. Hilary had all along been the chief 
 business agent of the society, and she now acted as 
 detective, reporting the families and individuals that 
 were most needy and worthy of assistance. 
 
 On Christmas day a motley assemblage filled 
 Mrs. O'Hollogan's bright and clean rooms. The 
 bedstead had been taken down, and the mangle and 
 washing-machine handed over to the care of a neigh- 
 bor; a long table formed of boards, laid upon car- 
 penter's tressles, stretched through three apartments, 
 with only a break at the doorways, the doors them- 
 selves having been taken off their hinges to afford 
 freer communication. Mrs. O'Hollogan presided at 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 5* 
 
 the cook-stove, dispensing with a long-handled dip- 
 per the oyster soup, which sent up a great cloud of 
 appetizing vapor from an immense and shining ket- 
 tle. The ladies had also provided sandwiches and 
 hot coffee, and Hilary carried her mother's largest 
 sized clothes-basket filled with doughnuts of Grandma 
 Tangleskein's own make. The dinner w r as served 
 from eleven o'clock until four, and at nine in the 
 evening the same company met in the same place 
 to do honor to the Christmas tree. The planks 
 which had formed the tables were now laid upon 
 wash-tubs and boxes, and served as benches. The 
 tree itself — a large evergreen sent down from Wis- 
 dom by the Venetians — stood in the central room, 
 and was brilliantly decorated. The company filed 
 around it for a good look, and then resumed their 
 seats. A Christmas carol was sung, a prayer of- 
 fered, and then the gifts were distributed. Every 
 one who had articles on pawn with the society had 
 them returned, and some things even which had 
 been sold found their way mysteriously back again. 
 It was a general day of jubilee. The sailor's wife, 
 who was a sailor's widow now, was crying over her 
 trunk-tray of shells, though they had been purchased 
 
52 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 at an extravagant price by a collector of curiosities 
 in the society. One old French lady had a pair 
 of gold ear-rings returned to her which were a 
 wedding present to her mother years and years and 
 years ago ; and another was pinning carefully in a 
 napkin some precious bits of point lace which had 
 been handed down as an heirloom through several 
 generations of her family, having been worn only 
 at the christening, the bridal, or some other grand 
 occasion. A consumptive-looking inventor, who had 
 worked himself sick over a complicated bit of mech- 
 anism, and was obliged in his extremity to pawn 
 the model just as he had completed it to his sat- 
 isfaction, received it back patented at the cost of 
 the society. Here was an old man turning over 
 the leaves of his great family Bible to assure him- 
 self, by a reference to his own birth, that it was 
 really the long-cherished volume ; and there a sweet 
 faced sewing-girl was counting the dozen silver tea- 
 spoons that bore her mother's monogram. One old 
 lady, who had pawned her parrot, was feeding it 
 from a contributed box of sugar-plums, while the 
 bird was going into hysterics of joy at meeting its 
 old mistress once more. Mr. Puffindorf was em- 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 53 
 
 bracing his beloved trombone, from which he had 
 parted on an occasion of mental aberration induced 
 by too much brandy and water. The loss of his 
 instrument had occasioned his suspension from the 
 orchestra to which he 
 belonged, and he had bit- 
 terly repented of his dis- 
 sipation. A temperance 
 pledge was attached to 
 the instrument, and he 
 took the hint and it im- 
 mediately, Mrs. O'Hollo- 
 gan offering him the bit 
 of red chalk, with which 
 she scored up her wash- 
 ing-lists, to sign his name. 
 Several wedding rings 
 were slipped again upon 
 worn fingers; an old-fashioned clock went clown 
 stairs under the arm of a Swiss who had originally 
 brought it with him from over seas. There were 
 many other articles returned, and with them were 
 sometimes found substantial presents, or small gifts 
 in money. One work of art was rescued from the 
 
54 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 auctioneer: a portrait, with the name of a noted 
 artist in the corner. This was returned by the be- 
 nevolent ladies, any one of whom would have been 
 glad to have owned it, to the lonely little woman, of 
 whose grandmother it was a likeness ; the picture 
 had always seemed like company to her, hanging 
 over her bed, and she had never felt so utterly alone 
 as since the time of parting with it. Hereafter, the 
 face, which resembled her own in the youth and 
 freshness depicted, would continue to look down 
 upon her, calling to mind that she whom it por- 
 trayed had endured trials and temptations, but over- 
 coming them all, finally went down to her grave in 
 a green old age, leaving the world richer for her 
 memory. 
 
 So the evening passed ; on leaving each received 
 a twig of holly of the bright green color which sig- 
 nifies hope and victory. Over the poor mantel-piece 
 Flossy noticed that there hung a certificate of the 
 burial, in Ireland, of Mrs. O'Hollogan's father. Mrs. 
 O'Hollogan explained it to her, for Flossy could 
 not understand the language in which it was writ- 
 ten, but she saw that the frame was made of a 
 wreath of pressed clover-leaves. 
 
CHRISTMAS GREENS. 
 
 55 
 
 " For what color shud be seen 
 Where our Feythers' graves have been, 
 But our own immortal grane?" 
 
 said Mrs. O'Hollogan, furtively wiping her eyes with 
 the corner of her apron. 
 
 A large stuffed owl which had been purchased 
 by the society, and whose owner had gone out West, 
 was presented to Flos- ^ 
 sy. It was fastened that 
 night upon a great branch 
 of holly, above the mir- 
 ror in her little room. 
 Flossy, falling to sleep 
 with its yellow glass 
 eyes staring down upon 
 her, dreamed that the 
 owl in the holly-bush was 
 alive, and that it was 
 visited by funny hunch- 
 backed little elves, such 
 as Hilary had said ran 
 at night lightly over the 
 quaking Irish bogs, carrying candles, which they 
 waved about to perplex travellers, though they never 
 did any harm, for they were only mischievous, not 
 
56 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 wicked. One of these will-o'-the-wisp bogtrotters 
 stood before the owl now, with his candle, and talked 
 about Christmas and Christmas Greens. Then the 
 owl told him what he had seen that day at Mrs. 
 O'Hollogan's ; "and it was all through that little 
 girl," said the owl. Flossy wondered how that could 
 be; it seemed to her that Hilary had had much more 
 to do with the formation of the society, and conse- 
 quently with the Christmas Tree than she ; but the 
 owl explained. " If she had not told the people at 
 Wisdom about the Flower Mission, the Mission 
 would have had no white clover, Hilary would have 
 had no shamrock, Grandma Tangleskein would 
 have had no Hilary, and the poor people who pat- 
 ronized the pawnbroker's shop would have had no 
 Grandma Tangleskein." 
 
 " Sure enough," replied the elf ; and then the air 
 seemed full of the little beings who, joining hands, 
 hovered in a circle above Flossy's head, repeating 
 a sort of blessing : — 
 
 " Her eyes the glowworm lend thee, 
 The shooting-star attend thee, 
 And the elves also, 
 Whose little eyes glow 
 Like the stars of the night, defend thee." 
 
ROSE MADDER. 
 
ROSE MADDER. 
 
 THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 LOSSY Tangleskein had 
 done a very foolish thing. 
 She visited a clairvoy- 
 ant to have her fortune 
 told. This was the way 
 it came about. Mam- 
 ma Tangleskein had lost 
 her diamond ring. She 
 thought a great deal 
 of it, for it was a very 
 elegant one, and Papa 
 Tangleskein had given 
 it to her long ago, when they were young and 
 foolish. She lost it making the New-Year's fruit- 
 cake, and the ring had been found on New-Year's 
 Day, when Aunt Toothaker broke one of her 
 false teeth on her piece of cake, and was very 
 
6o 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 nearly choked by the ring itself. But Mamma Tan- 
 gleskein's methodical mind had just reached the 
 fact that the ring was lost, and had not yet grasped 
 that of its having been found. She chanced to read 
 Madame Cheetiselli's advertisement in the morning 
 paper — 
 
 "All the HIDDEN THINGS of 
 
 THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT 
 
 BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THIS 
 
 WONDERFUL CLAIRVOYANT! 
 
 She foretells the future, and discloses the deepest secrets 
 of the past, gives the clew to things lost and stolen, explains 
 dreams, cures incurable diseases, tells you the name of your 
 future husband or wife, and opens communication with the 
 spirit world." 
 
 When Mamma Tangleskein saw this announce- 
 ment, the idea that Madame Cheetiselli might pos- 
 sibly be able to tell her where her ring was imme- 
 diately occurred to her, and she paid a visit to that 
 lady. 
 
 "We will communicate with the spirit world," 
 said Madame Cheetiselli. Then she darkened the 
 room, and Mamma Tangleskein was asked to place 
 her hands on those of the medium's, which rested 
 on a small table. Thereupon Madame Cheetiselli 
 began to talk in a sepulchral tone. " You have lost 
 a valuable object," said she. Mamma Tangleskein 
 had already told her that she had done so, and that 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 61 
 
 the object was a ring. " It has been hidden," con- 
 tinued Madame Cheetiselli, " buried, in fact ; but the 
 individual who now possesses it flaunts it fearlessly 
 and openly, confident that she will escape detection. 
 I can assure you that you will have your ring again 
 if you use the means." 
 
 " What are the means ? " asked Mamma Tangle, 
 skein. 
 
 " I cannot tell you, now," replied Madame Cheeti- 
 selli, "the power is leaving me; you must come 
 again." 
 
 Mamma Tangleskein paid her two dollars, and 
 went away very much impressed by the informa- 
 tion she had received. She pondered it over while 
 she did her shopping, and was so much engrossed 
 by a contemplation of the subject that she was 
 betrayed into more than her usual number of " in- 
 stances of absence of mind." On entering a store 
 she laid her parasol on one counter, and then passed 
 along to examine some goods ; she took it up 
 again, as she supposed, on leaving; proceeding slowly 
 down the principal street, she noticed that every 
 one seemed more than usually cheerful ; she was at 
 a loss to account for it until an acquaintance 
 
62 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 stopped her, and between paroxysms of unseemly 
 laughter, managed to ejaculate : " My dear Mrs. 
 Tangleskein, what do you imagine you are hold- 
 ing over your head ? " Mamma 
 Tangleskein was truly indignant ; 
 she regarded fixedly the handle of 
 the article in question, and replied : 
 " Why, my parasol, of course." It 
 struck her, however, that this plainly 
 painted handle was not like the 
 dainty pearl-inlaid one that sup- 
 I ffelgP ported her own lace parasol, she 
 lowered it, and discovered to her 
 horror-stricken gaze, — an enormous feather-duster ! 
 Then Mamma Tangleskein intended to take the 
 street-car for home, but in her abstraction she 
 stopped one going in just the opposite direction from 
 that which she wished to take. When it was in 
 full motion she realized this, and exclaimed excit- 
 edly, " But I am not going on this car, but I am 
 not going on this car ! " though she was going 
 on it all the time as fast as ever she could. In 
 spite of her eccentricities Mamma Tangleskein was 
 one of the dearest of women, and her forgetfulness 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 63 
 
 had its good side, for she could never remember 
 anything wrong of any one. When Mamma Tan- 
 gleskein at last reached home and took off her 
 gloves, the first thing she saw was her diamond 
 ring. She told the whole story at the tea-table, for 
 it seemed very funny to her. Mamma Tangleskein 
 liked to have other people laugh, and it did not 
 much matter if she was the one laughed at. 
 
 Flossy listened, and told Fluffy Swansdowne about 
 it at school the next day. Fluffy thought it would 
 be great fun to call on Madame Cheetiselli, too. 
 
 " But we have n't lost any rings," said Flossy. 
 
 " I might throw mine down the well," suggested 
 Fluffy ; " the one with a blue diamond in it, that 
 Uncle Charlie gave me ; but I don't think it would 
 be nice either, for may be we could not get it out 
 again." 
 
 " We might have our fortunes told," was Flossy 's 
 conclusion. 
 
 " So we might," assented Fluffy ; and the two 
 girls presented themselves after school in the clair- 
 voyant's rooms. 
 
 " Let us communicate with the spirit world," said 
 Madame Cheetiselli. Then she made the room dark, 
 
6 4 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 and the two girls seated themselves at the little table, 
 one on each side of her, and all took hold of hands. 
 " Now you may each make a wish," said Madame 
 Cheetiselli. Flossy wished that she might go to 
 Europe some day, and Fluffy that her father would 
 buy out the confectioner on the corner, and let her 
 have all the chocolate-creams and cocoanut-cakes she 
 wanted. Then Madame Cheetiselli said : " Listen 
 to those strains of angelic music"; the girls heard 
 
 something that sounded like 
 a music-box ; first it played 
 the Lancers very slowly, and 
 then " I have a Father in 
 the Promised Land," a lit- 
 tle more briskly ; after that 
 all was still, and Madame 
 Cheetiselli said, " The se- 
 ance is at an end," arose and 
 rolled up the window cur- 
 tains. The girls then no- 
 ticed on the table before 
 each of them an object 
 which was not there when they sat down. " A gift 
 from the spirit-land," said Madame Cheetiselli. Fluf- 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 65 
 
 fy's " gift " was a tiny carrier-pigeon made of paper, 
 bearing in its bill a letter tied with blue ribbon. 
 " The sign signifies," said the Madame, " that you 
 will soon receive a very important letter." Flossy 
 had a great red paper rose, which Madame Cheeti- 
 selli explained " meant that her path through life 
 would be a flowery one." Each paid her seventy- 
 five cents, which Madame said was the price for 
 children, and they went down stairs together. 
 
 " I wonder how she knew," said Fluffy, " about 
 Ruby Rose." 
 
 " I don't believe my flower meant him," exclaimed 
 Flossy, in surprise. 
 
 l ' Why, of course," insisted Fluffy, " what else 
 could it mean ? " 
 
 This argument seemed unanswerable, but Flossy 
 felt more ashamed of herself than ever, and she 
 would not have had Ruby know of the adventure 
 for anything. 
 
 One thing puzzled her still ; if the spirits did not 
 bring these, and she could hardly believe that they 
 did, how came that rose on the table before her? 
 The Saturday after this occurrence Tint announced 
 to the children that he would tell them a story which 
 
66 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 should correspond to the color rose madder. Flossy 
 blushed violently. " I wonder if Tint knows any- 
 thing about that rose," she thought to herself; " I 
 am sure the more I think about it the madder and 
 madder I get." Tint's story did not seem to have 
 anything to do with this color after all, and he 
 might just as appropriately have called it Cerulean 
 Blue or Emerald Green. 
 
 " The history of Art in France," said Tint, " be- 
 gins in the sixteenth century, with the reign of Fran- 
 cis I. This monarch, with his love for all that was 
 gay and beautiful, changed the appearance of the 
 country and the manners of the people. The old 
 castles, hitherto grim fortresses, were transformed into 
 magnificent hunting-lodges, villas, and even palaces. 
 We can almost say that landscape gardening was 
 invented by him, for before his time there were 
 hardly any gardens, — a closely-trodden court, sur- 
 rounded by high walls and ramparts, affording 
 scarcely room for the men-at-arms to exercise in, 
 was considered enough for any castle ; now the walls 
 were thrown down ; spacious gardens or i pleas- 
 ances,' adorned with statuary and fountains stepped 
 down terraces gay with roses, to the magnificent 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 6 7 
 
 parks. The architecture of the buildings themselves 
 became more airy and graceful, blossoming into or- 
 nament wherever ornament was possible. Even 
 the furniture partook of 
 the general change, and 
 became more luxurious Ijpjpl 
 and elegant. This change 
 was called the Renais- 
 sance, and was an off- 
 shoot of the great Art 
 revival in Italy, where 
 the French king had 
 spent much time, attract- J 
 ed as much by the desire 
 to bring back to France % 
 the beautiful Art crea- 
 tions of this country, as by the love of military glory. 
 Not only did he obtain there many valuable paint- 
 ings, — the foundation of the magnificent collection 
 now in the gallery of the Louvre in Paris, — but he 
 tempted away a number of Italian artists with the 
 design of founding a school of Art in France. 
 Among these were Cellini, Primaticcio, Andrea del 
 Sarto, and most pre-eminent of all, Leonardo da 
 
68 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Vinci. To this painter he gave the chateau of Cloux, 
 near that of Amboise, one of his own favorite re- 
 sorts. 
 
 " Now let us play that we are back in the sixteenth 
 century, and that the court is at Amboise, a castle 
 whose corner-stone was laid by Julius Caesar sixty 
 years before Christ was born. Francis I. used to 
 live here when a boy, with his mother and his sister 
 Marguerite, who was called the Pearl of Valois. 
 He has since built more magnificent palaces, but 
 he still loves the long and beautiful gallery over- 
 looking the River Loire ; there he and Marguerite 
 have romped together; still loves the stately rooms 
 where she and his mother read to him from the 
 poets, and pointed out the pictures . embroidered in 
 the rich tapestry-hangings, filling his soul with a 
 love for poetry, art, and knighthood. The chapel 
 at Amboise is considered one of the marvels of 
 Gothic architecture, and Leonardo da Vinci requested 
 that he might be buried here. Francis is a young 
 man, fond not only of art and poetry, but also of 
 manly exercises of war and the chase ; the chief 
 amusement of the Court while at Amboise is hunt- 
 ing in the extensive forests which surround it. We 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 69 
 
 will watch one of these gay parties as they ride from 
 the castle gate. It is the age of luxury and extrava- 
 gance in dress, and even here, far from the capital, — 
 
 ' Lords and ladies of the high court go 
 
 In silver tissue talking things of state ; 
 And children of the king in cloth of gold 
 Glance at the doors, or gambol down the walks.' 
 
 Look at the gentlemen with their broad-brimmed 
 hats, fringed with gold and looped up with jewels; 
 cloaks embroidered in gold and silver hang jaunt- 
 ily from their shoulders ; their satin vests sparkle 
 with ' rivieres ' or necklaces of diamonds or emer- 
 alds; richly chased swords flash beside the slashed 
 hose, and their laces are wonders of beauty and 
 price. The ladies, of course, are still more gor- 
 geous, as ladies should be. Gayest and brightest 
 of all is Francis, in a suit of rich Genoa velvet, 
 rose and sky blue, a Spanish hat is on his head, 
 turned up, with a white plume fastened by a clasp 
 of rubies and a golden salamander. He is a haughty, 
 distinguished-looking man, and he leads the hunting 
 cavalcade upon a magnificent black horse, adorned 
 with housings of cloth of gold, its mane plaited 
 with jewels. Riding near him, and conspicuous 
 
70 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 over all the rest of the party, are three beautiful 
 ladies. 
 
 4 The first is dressed in rose-red silk, 
 The second in velvet green, 
 The third in satin, as white as milk; — 
 Would their souls as pure had been.' 
 
 The one in white satin, faced with ermine, wearing 
 the long ermine mantle, high lace ruff, and collearette 
 of pearls, is as pure as she looks ; it is the wife 6f 
 Francis, Queen Claude, with white serious brow and 
 timid air. The lady in rose-colored silk, profusely 
 covered in the Spanish style with pointe d'Alencon, 
 is Marguerite, the king's sister, and the lace is from 
 her husband's province, for she has married the Duke 
 d'Alencon. The little lady in the green velvet riding 
 habit buttoned to the hem with emeralds, who rides 
 nearest to the king, on the milk-white palfrey, is his 
 favorite, Diane de Poitiers; she has that rare com- 
 bination of dark eyes with golden hair, which gives 
 their owner such distinguished and piquant beauty. 
 But Diane's principal attraction is not her beauty; 
 she is very intelligent, witty, and accomplished. She 
 is ambitious, too, and the other court ladies, who 
 envy the favor which she enjoys, say that she is 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 71 
 
 intriguing and heartless. The court hunt to-day in 
 the beautiful forest of Chenonceaux. The king's 
 purveyor has provided a lunch for them at the hunt- 
 ing-lodge of one of the Barons, built upon the bank, 
 and extending partly across the river Cher, on the 
 foundation of a mill. The site is so charmingly pic- 
 turesque that both Francis and all the ladies express 
 themselves delighted with it, and no one is more 
 profuse in her admiration than Diane de Poitiers. 
 ' Ah, sire,' she exclaims, 1 what a palace of enchant- 
 ment might not the resources of a king create 
 here.' 
 
 " ' And who more fitted to be enchantress of the 
 place than our charming Diane?' replies the king. 
 The words are* spoken lightly, but many mark how 
 keenly the little lady scans the castle, visiting it 
 ' from turret to foundation stone,' and darting out 
 into the Cher on a tiny boat. Diane's new fancy 
 displeases no one so much as Triboulet, the court 
 jester. This little wizened old man, who rides up- 
 on a piebald horse, whose fool's cap and bells flap 
 in the wind, or are played with by the ape which 
 sits behind him, carries a sounder head and a truer 
 heart than many a courtier of more dignified appear- 
 
7 2 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 , ance. He has been the court jester of the former 
 king, Louis XII., and is sincerely attached to the 
 interests of his daughter, Queen Claude, whose mar- 
 riage with Francis has made the latter king. 
 
 " ' Palaces are for queens,' mutters Triboulet, to 
 himself, ' and not for such as you, Madame Diane.' 
 Then he busies himself with thinking how he can 
 thwart Madame Diane's ambitious plans. 
 
 " The next day Diane de Poitiers is to sit for her 
 portrait to Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo is re- 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 73 
 
 spected by high and low as a man of genius. He 
 is from Italy, also ; the land of astrology and magic, 
 of chemistry, subtle poisons, love-powders, and the 
 evil eye. Even the most cultivated people in France 
 at this time believed in these things. Leonardo has 
 performed some very simple and favorite experiments 
 in physics since his arrival, and is looked upon as 
 a great magician. In his youth Leonardo had 
 been as proficient in chemistry and mechanics as 
 in painting; later in life he felt that his talent was 
 not appreciated in 
 Italy ; he chanced 
 to attract the atten- 
 tion of Francis, who 
 had conquered a part 
 of the country, and 
 was then in Italy, by 
 constructing an au- 
 tomaton lion. This, 
 at a banquet, pre- 
 sented itself to the 
 king, and opening its 
 breast was discovered to be filled with bouquets 
 of lilies, the emblem of France. The ingenious 
 
74 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE, 
 
 contrivance seemed to typify that though the Italian 
 people had met him in the guise of a lion they 
 were French at heart; it pleased Francis, who had 
 already admired Leonardo as an artist, and he car- 
 ried him back to France, giving him a salary and 
 the little chateau of Cloux near Amboise. Tribou- 
 let determined to seek an interview with the kind- 
 hearted Leonardo, and if possible persuade him to 
 use his influence over Diane de Poitiers to induce 
 her to give up her plan of asking the king * for the 
 chateau of Chenonceaux. 
 
 " Diane came to Leonardo da Vinci on the day 
 after the hunt to sit for her portrait, not knowing 
 that Triboulet had been there before her. Leonardo 
 agreed with Triboulet that such a mark of royal 
 favor as the gift of a chateau would distress the 
 good queen, and bring nothing but unhappiness to 
 Diane herself. He thought with Triboulet that it 
 would be well to dissuade Diane from her under- 
 taking, but how to accomplish it ? She sat before 
 him, beautiful, fascinating, with an expression ex- 
 quisitely sweet, innocent, and — no, not so gay as 
 usual ; she was silent and preoccupied, like himself. 
 At length she spoke : 4 — 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 75 
 
 " ' Master Leonardo, is it true, as men say, that 
 you deal with magic and with unknown powers ? ' 
 
 " 1 All that magicians have done I can do,' re- 
 plied Leonardo ; ' I am versed in all the secrets of 
 alchemy and astrology.' 
 
 " 1 Then,' asked Diane, eagerly, ' will you exercise 
 those secrets in my behalf? ' 
 
 " 4 Most willingly, fair dame,' replied Leonardo. 
 ' Write whatsoever question or request you please 
 upon this paper, which you may then burn in fire, 
 and on your next coming you shall receive an an- 
 swer thereto.' 
 
 " Diane wrote upon a piece of paper which the 
 great artist handed her, while he prepared a fire 
 upon a strange-looking tripod. When this fire was 
 fully kindled she dropped the paper into the flames, 
 and watched until it was apparently consumed; after 
 she had gone the learned Leonardo poured some 
 chemicals upon the scorched paper' and easily read 
 the request Diane had written, — which was 1 Let 
 the first portrait I see when next I come be that 
 of the future mistress of the chateau of Chenon- 
 ceaux.' Leonardo smiled ; evidently Diane did not 
 half believe in the experiment she was about to 
 
7 6 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 try ; the first portrait which she was likely to see 
 on entering his studio would be her own, and she 
 hoped in this way to obtain a confirmation of, or 
 authority for her ambitious plans. 
 
 " When Diane came again the aspect of the stu- 
 dio was changed. A blank canvas stood upon the 
 easel ; this she could just discern by the light of a 
 flame burning upon the tripod, for the room was 
 darkened. Strange uncanny objects peered from 
 the gloom : the retorts and instruments of an alche- 
 mist, skeletons, snakes, and bats ; Leonardo him- 
 self, in his magician's robe covered with cabalis- 
 tic characters, and his venerable white beard, had 
 all the appearance of a wizard. He placed a chair 
 for her in front of the canvas, bade her look at it 
 intently, and then vanished. Soon was heard the 
 sound of low plaintive music, and from a bright spot 
 which suddenly appeared on the canvas shone the 
 portrait of a woman, wonderfully beautiful, but bear- 
 ing no resemblance to herself. Diane gazed at her 
 until the vision slowly vanished, then she cried 
 impulsively, ' tell me her name, or at least show me 
 the device of her family.' Leonardo, who stood 
 behind her, had thrown the picture upon the can- 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 77 
 
 vas by the use of a contrivance of his own similar 
 to a magic-lantern, which was not invented until 
 a later period. Leonardo had noticed that the light 
 falling through a stained glass window threw the 
 picture painted upon it on the floor. Holding a 
 bit of painted glass before 
 a lamp he found that he 
 could throw a picture on 
 any surface he chose, and 
 his ingenious mind antici- 
 pated the invention of this 
 pre-eminently artistic bit of 
 mechanism. He had made 
 an apparatus in Florence long 
 before, to. amuse some mem- 
 bers of the Medici family, and 
 on one of the slides painted 
 the escutcheon of this noble 
 family. It was the only coat- 
 of-arms which he had to throw upon the canvas, and 
 it was chance that made him do so now in answer 
 to the question put him, though Diane in her after 
 life had cause enough to hate the escutcheon of 
 the Medici. 
 
78 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " This little drama in the studio was not without 
 its effect. Diane seemed to have lost all liking for 
 the chateau of Chenonceaux. She never mentioned 
 her project to Francis, though she could not quite 
 bring herself to abandon it ; and long afterward, when 
 Leonardo da Vinci, the Queen Claude, and Francis 
 were all in their tombs, and a new king occupied 
 the throne of France, she obtained this darling wish 
 of her heart. But Leonardo's prophecy was truer 
 than he knew, for Diane had but just converted 
 Chenonceaux into one of the most lovely of French 
 chateaux, when the new queen, Catherine of the 
 house of Medici, forced Diane to surrender to her 
 the lovely spot." 
 
 u Then there was n't any real magic at all about 
 it," said Flossy, thoughtfully, as Tint ceased speak- 
 ing. 
 
 " There is no such thing as magic," replied Tint ; 
 " what appears such to us is only the working of 
 natural laws which we do not understand, or the 
 mere chance happening of two events, which seem 
 to be connected, but really have nothing to do with 
 each other." 
 
 " And Madame Cheetiselli must have been a hum- 
 
THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 79 
 
 bug, too," thought Flossy ; " and I should n't won- 
 der, — I should n't be in the least surprised if she 
 did n't even know that there ever was a boy named 
 Ruby Rose." 
 
VENETIAN RED. 
 
VENETIAN RED. 
 
 VENICE GARDENS. 
 (Flossy s Composition.) 
 
 HERE are no gardens in Venice, 
 — that is, there are no real ones; 
 as Grandma Tangleskein says, 
 ' there are a great many things 
 outside the Bible as well as in it 
 that are not to be taken in their 
 
 literary sense.' And since Venice 
 is a city built in the sea, one 
 might suppose that the Venetians 
 have red herrings instead of straw- 
 berries, and codfish for cabbages, 
 and sea-serpents for cucumber- 
 pickles, and lobsters for water- 
 melons, and crabs for crab-apples, 
 and whales for pumpkins. Though 
 I don't believe whale-pie would be nearly so nice 
 as our pumpkin-pie. 
 
8 4 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " But this is not the kind of garden I meant. 
 Tint said, when he told me about Venetian Red, 
 'since the Venetians could not have flower-gar- 
 dens like other people, they made flower-gardens 
 of the outsides of their houses.' I don't mean 
 
 that people gen- 
 erally have their 
 flower - gardens 
 inside their 
 houses, but the 
 Venetians, who 
 were just as fond of flowers and bright colors as 
 other people, painted the walls of their houses all 
 over with beautiful pictures of flowers and angels 
 and things. These pictures were painted upon plas- 
 ter, and they called them frescos. I used to hear 
 Cousin Bob talk about A I fresco breakfast-parties, 
 and I thought they must be parties where the peo- 
 ple had nothing but plaster to eat ; but I know 
 better now. It means breakfast out-of-doors, and so 
 perhaps pictures out-of-doors, like circus advertise- 
 ments. 
 
 " The Venetian artists did their very best to make 
 these gardens beautiful as possible, and they rivalled 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 85 
 
 each other in painting lovely and brilliant pictures. 
 But the very best painter of all was Titian ; no one 
 else painted such beautiful pictures, and no one else 
 painted so many. When he was a young man he 
 lived with another young artist, named Giorgione. 
 Giorgione means ' that great fellow George ' ; per- 
 haps they called him so because he was very big 
 and strong. Titian and he painted together a great 
 deal, sometimes on a flower-garden for the same 
 house, and Giorgione's pictures were like fairy sto- 
 ries. But he did not paint as much as Titian, for 
 he died when quite young. Then there was one 
 of Titian's pupils who made the walls blossom all 
 over; his name was Tintoretto, which means 'the 
 little dyer,' but Titian called him a dauber ; and 
 there was one more who liked to paint pic- 
 tures of people richly dressed, sitting at magnificent 
 feasts, surrounded with gold and silver and jewels ; 
 his name was Paul Veronese. Tint told me all 
 this, and a great deal more. He said that if we 
 called these paintings the flower-gardens of Venice, 
 then the pictures of Paul Veronese might be com- 
 pared to the rich vases of ' streaky tulips, gold, and 
 jet,' that Tintoretto's were sweet and dreamy as vio- 
 
86 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 lets, Giorgione's pure as lilies, while every one of 
 Titian's was a perfect rose. This was what started 
 the ' orders ' in our secret society. Ruby's father 
 had a cup full of Venetian beads, made out of real 
 Venice glass ; when he heard of our society he 
 said we might have four of them, to be strung on 
 ribbon, as decorations or prizes to be given by our 
 society. The beads were something like the marbles 
 on Grandma Tangleskein's solitaire-board, full of all 
 sorts of colors, only much handsomer. We took 
 a great black one on which little red flowers were 
 painted, fastened it to an orange-colored ribbon, and 
 called it the order of Veronese; then we chose a 
 beautiful blue one, that changed as you held it to 
 the light to green or purple, and made it the cen- 
 tre to a cross of violet velvet ; this was the Tinto- 
 retto order; a crystal bead, filled with wavy lines 
 of red and green, and dashes of gold leaf, we hung 
 at the tip of a broad piece of white satin ribbon, 
 and called it the Giorgione decoration ; but the grand 
 prize of Venice, the most honorable of all — the order 
 of Titian — was a ruby bead, to be fastened to its 
 wearer's button-hole by a cord of gold thread with 
 two tiny tassels. And now you . will say that while 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 87 
 
 I have told you about the honors we conferred, I 
 have n't explained what they were given for, or even 
 told the name of our society. We called ourselves the 
 Venetian Gardeners, but no one knew our full name ; 
 that would not have been at all proper for a secret 
 society, and we soon found that the Venetians was 
 as much as we could manage by ourselves. Our 
 object was home decoration, and we took the name 
 because we admired the old Venetian painters so 
 much for trying to place flowers where no real ones 
 could grow. They changed a city, which might very 
 easily have been the most dismally damp and dole- 
 ful in existence, to one which all travellers describe 
 as an enchanting fairy-land. We determined to copy 
 them by putting something pretty or bright or cheer- 
 ful wherever we could find a place that looked par- 
 ticularly desolate or ugly. My composition is al- 
 ready so long that I can't tell you exactly what 
 we did, only it was a perfect success, and we never 
 would have done anything if it had not been for 
 Miss Pinkey." 
 
 This was Flossy s first composition after her re- 
 turn from a summer spent in the country. The 
 
88 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Tangleskeins had gone to Wisdom. It was not a 
 fashionable resort, being neither on the seashore nor 
 among real mountains ; it boasted of no warm, mud- 
 dy, horribly tasting mineral springs ; the waters of 
 all its brooks and wells had the misfortune to be de- 
 liciously cold, sparkling, and sweet. No railroad ran 
 through the place, and it was not, as the name might 
 suggest, the seat of a college or great university of 
 learning. The situation was picturesque, in a very 
 narrow valley, between two high ridges of blue 
 slaty hills, which opened and gave a glimpse of still 
 higher ones that had all the effect of mountains. 
 Wisdom very narrowly escaped being as pretty a 
 
 under broad shade-hats, they 
 preferred white frame ones, exactly alike, with the 
 same number of green blinds, and a bird-house of 
 
 village as any in Switzerland ; 
 and only escaped because the 
 inhabitants had not the sense 
 
 ^ of beauty which the Swiss 
 have ; instead of building pret- 
 ty cottages with projecting 
 ^ roofs, like rustic beauties hid- 
 > ing away their browned faces 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 89 
 
 the same pattern, on a pole in the front yard ; for 
 everybody in Wisdom made it a point of honor 
 to do exactly as everybody else, and everybody 
 was so unfortunately well off they were quite able 
 to buy a bird-house just like their neighbors. And 
 yet in spite of the bird-houses and the green blinds 
 without and the Venetian ones within (the only arti- 
 cle in the village bearing the name Venetian, and 
 seemingly so called because its like was never seen 
 in Venice), the little town still verified the Bible 
 assertion, " Wisdom's ways were pleasantness, and 
 all her paths were peace." Perhaps one reason 
 for the name of the town was this ; a seminary for 
 young ladies had been located here in 
 former times, but in spite of an ample 
 endowment the institution of learning 
 languished, and was sadly in need of 
 repair. There was a circulating library 
 in the village, also endowed, as was 
 nearly every other association here. 
 The two churches were groaning under 
 legacies of deceased members. The 
 little Methodist chapel had a farm connected with 
 its pleasant parsonage; few of the church members 
 
go 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 owned a larger one, and they came gradually to think 
 that this was quite enough for the minister, and 
 " if he was any sort of a man he could make his 
 living off it." Renting the pews in the church was 
 not to be thought of, for it was the opinion of the 
 whole congregation that " the house of God should 
 be free to all " ; beyond a yearly donation-party 
 nothing could be got out of their pockets. At the 
 Unitarian church, too, all energy and action were 
 smothered in the members by an endowment; 
 
 the pews had been bought by the grand- 
 fathers of the present occupants, who closed 
 the doors with a bang of conscious proprie- 
 torship before settling themselves to their 
 Sunday morning nap. Somebody in the dim 
 past had left to the church property yield- 
 ing: an income of three hundred dollars, and 
 the minister's salary was supposed to be 
 made up to " something handsome " by " vol- 
 untary contribution." 
 If the dead and gone people of Wisdom had done 
 less, perhaps the present inhabitants would have 
 done more ; as it was, nobody went to hear a lec- 
 ture for which there was anything to pay, because 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 91 
 
 during the winter there was a course of six free 
 lectures ; and hardly any one attended the free lec- 
 tures, because they " could n't be worth much if 
 they did n't cost anything." 
 
 It was to this village the Tangleskeins came to 
 pass a summer. In a search for fringed gentians 
 on the hills, Flossy came across a little lady perched 
 upon a great gray rock with a sketch-box upon her 
 
92 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 lap, in which she was making a very pretty water- 
 color of a group of columbine. It was Miss Pinkey, 
 the drawing-teacher at the seminary, who was too 
 poor to go away to pass the summer vacation with 
 friends ; though that was no hardship, she would 
 say, for she had no friends to visit, and so spent 
 her vacations at the seminary. She had a class in 
 flower-painting, too, the members of which, being 
 nearly all residents of Wisdom, kept up their studies 
 during the summer. To this class Flossy attached 
 herself, and it was while sketching out of doors 
 during the early part of the summer, that the 
 society of Venetians originated. There had been 
 a Missionary Society in the village, one of the 
 girls said, which Mrs. Pilgrim, the Methodist min- 
 ister's wife, started; they held an annual fair, and 
 the good lady, who had a decided talent in that 
 direction, instructed the girls in embroidery. They 
 made a great many very pretty articles, and en- 
 joyed meeting once a week to work and chat, but 
 some way they lost their interest in the object of 
 the society ; besides, a dancing-school happened to be 
 organized on its regular day of meeting, and so 
 it came to grief. The dancing lessons were over 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 93 
 
 now, but the eld society did not seem to have 
 enough vitality left in it to begin anew, and yet 
 the girls wished for something of the kind. Miss 
 Pinkey suggested a " Beauty Mission " for home 
 instead of foreign work, the aim, to make home 
 as attractive as possible. Painting should be only 
 one of the departments, 
 and she promised to call 
 on Mrs. Pilgrim, and in- 
 duce her, if possible, to 
 take the " chair of Em- 
 broidery." " It will never 
 do, however, to enlist the 
 Methodist element with- 
 out also inviting the Uni- 
 tarians to take a promi- 
 nent part; an enterprise 
 of this kind will go to 
 pieces," said Miss Pinkey, 
 " if it is sectarian." 
 
 " But Mrs. Stockstill is 
 not in the least artistic," 
 said all the girls ; " she is entirely wrapped up in 
 her housekeeping and her flowers." 
 
94 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 "Then she will be a very valuable member," said 
 Miss Pinkey, " for flowers are our special admira- 
 tion ; no matter how many copies we have of 
 them we cannot spare the sweet originals. She 
 ought to be our president, and as to her other spe- 
 cial fondness, of what use will it be for us to learn 
 house decoration, if we do not also learn how to 
 keep our houses beautiful ? " 
 
 The society arranged to meet in turn at Miss 
 Pinkey's, Mrs. Pilgrim's, and Mrs. Stockstill's. The 
 beads of Venice glass were presented to it in its 
 early days, and made into decorations which were 
 to be given the following summer, just one year • 
 from the formation of the society, to the members 
 who should achieve the greatest triumphs in the 
 way of beautifying unlovely things. And really they 
 did accomplish wonders. 
 
 They began with the two Sunday schools. Miss 
 Pinkey designed a quantity of illuminations in old 
 English and German text; these the class executed. 
 They were at first arranged to hang upon the wall 
 like pictures, only remaining during the exercises 
 of the Sunday school. But the grown people had 
 enough good sense to admire them as much as 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 95 
 
 the children, and they insisted on their being 
 left during their part of the service. Then Miss 
 Pinkey and her class mounted step-ladders and ac- 
 complished something in the way of fresco. The 
 time-stained walls of the two churches were bright- 
 ened by a band of texts, running around the room 
 
 1 Got is \m II 
 
 just beneath the cornice, and separated from each 
 other by arabesques. This made the other parts of 
 the house look shabby, so the class undertook the 
 entire renovation of the interiors of both churches, 
 and accomplished it with more of satisfaction to the 
 respective congregations than if a professional hand 
 had undertaken the work. They refused any pay 
 for their services beyond the price of material ; " the 
 fun of the thing," and the furore they were creat- 
 ing was recompense enough. Before it came to 
 this, however, they had reconstructed the school- 
 house and the library, which was popularly called 
 a reading-room. Nobody ever came here to read, 
 
9 6 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 for it was a very dreary and uninviting place until 
 the Venetians attacked it. All along the unpainted 
 edges of the rough pine boards which formed the 
 shelves, the girls fastened, by means of brass-headed 
 tacks, a narrow edging of red morocco pinked by 
 Mrs. Pilgrim. The curtains were of a woollen ma- 
 terial, which would have fallen in soft, graceful 
 folds had they been properly hung, but they were 
 a dull ugly gray in color, and the way in which 
 they were put up helped their resemblance to 
 army blankets. Mrs. Stockstill experimented in 
 dyes ; as one result of her chemical studies she 
 appeared for several weeks afterward in Lisle- 
 thread gloves which were not taken off, even at 
 meal-time ; the gloves disguised the fact that her 
 plump little hands were stained with shades of 
 red and green, while her nails were as yellow as 
 those of any henna-loving Egyptian beauty ; another 
 result was it was ascertained that the stuff of which 
 the curtains were made would take maroon better 
 than any other color. More was purchased, the 
 curtains were dyed, and under Mrs. Pilgrim's di- 
 rection the deft fingers of the class embroidered 
 long stripes of worsted work which were fastened 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 97 
 
 upon them in applique in two long bands near 
 the top and bottom. They were then attached to 
 large wooden rings through which ran a rod ; 
 when fastened 
 in place over the 
 windows and as 
 a portiere across 
 the doorway, 
 they at once J 
 gave the room 
 an air of ele- 
 gance entirely 
 this was not all, 
 tees had placed 
 money in the 
 thusiastic Vene- 
 could not stop here. 
 
 The chief business man of the community, Mr. 
 Philander McCash, owned a quarry and factory on 
 the other side of the hills near the railroad, for the 
 cutting of slate into salable shapes ; he designed 
 adding to this line of business that of a manufactory 
 for making it up into various articles of ornament 
 and furniture. Miss Pinkey had procured a quan- 
 
 a sman sum 01 
 hands of the en- 
 tians, and they 
 
98 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 tity of small squares of slate, and painted them in 
 patterns suitable for tile decoration. These were 
 marbleized or glazed at a mantel-factory in a neigh- 
 boring village, and they were so pretty that she at- 
 tempted more work of the same kind ; table-tops 
 ornamented in mosaic patterns, flower-stands, boxes, 
 shawl-pins, and even clock-cases. She was fortu- 
 
 nately discovered by an 
 agent for a city house, 
 who engaged all the ar- 
 ticles of the kind which 
 she could make, at what 
 seemed to the little lady 
 very liberal prices, but 
 which left a large margin 
 
 for profit to her employ- 
 ers. She instructed her pupils in the decoration of 
 slate-tiles, and many a pretty floral design was thrown 
 that summer upon tablets commonly employed for 
 torturing young minds in the exercise of arithmetic. 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 99 
 
 They had never attempted anything very ambitious, 
 but the chimney-piece in the library-room was " too 
 horrid for anything." Mrs. Pilgrim designed a lam- 
 brequin for the top, and Miss Pinkey had a border- 
 ing of tiles arranged in a wooden frame, which the 
 girls decorated. These were the public works en- 
 gaged in by the whole society ; but each individual 
 Venetian enlisted in some private enterprise of her 
 own ; it may be that the thought of the medals in 
 the distribution of the society had a stimulating 
 effect, such is the powerful influence which the vain- 
 glory of honors and distinctions has over the human 
 mind ; but a glass bead and a ribbon could not have 
 been the only motive with these young souls. 
 
 There was Miss Patience Wayte, who had lain 
 upon her bed for twenty years a paralytic, unable 
 to move her head from side to side, staring all 
 the time up at the ceiling; such an uninterest- 
 ing ceiling, too, with only ugly cracks and stains 
 to diversify the surface. It bore, for an imagina- 
 tive mind, a remote resemblance to a yellow old 
 map of some undiscovered country. To be sure 
 there was a very small slanting skylight, but this 
 had been so patched with paper and festooned with 
 
IOO ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 cobwebs that very little light struggled through, and 
 allowed no glimpse of the blue beyond. This was 
 a grand chance for Flossy. She obtained Miss 
 Wayte's permission to whitewash the ceiling, then 
 she sent its dimensions to Mr. Rose, who bought a 
 quantity of coarse cotton cloth, and drew a pattern 
 upon it for Flossy to fill out in color. Just over 
 Miss Wayte's bed a trellis or vine-arbor was repre- 
 sented, through which dropped clusters of grapes, 
 their broad rich leaves making a roof overhead. 
 The rest of the ceiling was painted a steely blue, 
 giving a feeling of air and space, crossed by long 
 
 irregular lines of birds, making one think of Tenny- 
 son's " swallows flying, flying South." The broken 
 skylight was replaced by whole panes, over which 
 was spread a sheet of gelatinized paper, a copy of 
 some old church window, and an excellent imita- 
 tion of stained glass. After Miss Wayte was 
 brought back to her room she lay for a while with 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 IOI 
 
 closed eyes, but when she opened them the expres- 
 sion on her face was as though she had seen a vis- 
 ion of angels. It was a very kind thing to think 
 of, and the pleasant thought was charmingly carried 
 out, yet it only 
 gained Flossy the 
 Giorgione decora- 
 tion ; the grand 
 prize of Venice, 
 the order of Ti- 
 tian, was given 
 for a still more 
 beautiful deed. 
 The Tintoretto 
 and Veronese 
 medals were 
 awarded to two 
 girls who, under 
 the leadership of Mrs. Stockstill and with the help 
 of Mrs. Stockstill's flowers, which she gave liberally, 
 effected a great change in the neglected cemetery. 
 In the first place the little comrnittee set out flow- 
 ers on the graves of those who had no friends in 
 the community to care for them ; .then they gave 
 
102 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 roots and seeds to those who had loving, mourning 
 hearts and willing hands, but were too poor to show 
 their remembrance of the lost in this way. The 
 wealthier lot-owners were stimulated by this to some 
 exertion of their own ; a fountain was purchased and 
 placed in the little enclosure, and other improve- 
 ments gradually showed themselves. Grown people 
 were stirred up to the feeling that a little band of 
 young girls were outstripping them, and they joined 
 with good-natured rivalry in public enterprise. Many 
 asked permission to join the Venetians, and to a few 
 this favor was accorded ; one of the new candidates 
 for admission was a city lady, a summer-boarder in 
 Wisdom. She taught the girls the art of making 
 netted guipure, and interested them in lace gener- 
 ally. Under her direction a beautiful set of curtains 
 was made of common unbleached cotton, bordered 
 with guipure insertion and lace, and this set the 
 girls hung up with great glee in Miss Pinkey's room 
 on her birthday. There were too many for her win- 
 dows, so the city lady arranged a very pretty can- 
 opy for the bed, from which the curtains drifted 
 gracefully down. They found one other lace con- 
 noisseur, an old English lady, who made pillow-lace, 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 103 
 
 collars, and cuffs that were 
 She was immediately made 
 body. The girls paid her for 
 instructing them, and the city 
 lady bought all the work which 
 she had made during the past 
 winter. 
 
 Another work of merit was 
 performed by one of the mem- 
 bers, who supplied herself 
 
 really very beautiful, 
 a member of their 
 
 ferent places for them, — one 
 other on the ridgepole of the 
 den among the blossoms of a 
 Clara Helps had an uncle 
 
 with a " jig-saw," and 
 instructed a class of 
 small boys in wood- 
 carving. This move- 
 ment resulted in the 
 utter rout of the bird- 
 houses on the poles ; 
 newer and prettier 
 ones were made, and 
 the boys found dif- 
 in the cherry-tree, an- 
 barn, and another hid- 
 syringa. 
 
 in a tea store in the 
 
104 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 city, who sent her a roll of Chinese pictures, 
 and some very pretty, but broken tea-boxes. With 
 the pictures Clara determined to make a folding 
 screen to keep the draughts away from her grand- 
 mother's bed; but the woodwork of the screen was 
 more than she could manage, so she went down 
 to see if the Crowdy boys could help her. Mrs. 
 Crowdy was a poor woman with a large family. 
 
 them, and they slunk through the village streets in 
 a hang-dog way, knowing that they were watched, 
 and that people were talking about them. Robert, 
 the wrong-doer, had just finished his term of con- 
 
 One of the boys had 
 turned out badly; he 
 robbed the mail-bags 
 as they lay one night 
 in the depot waiting 
 for the midnight train, 
 was discovered and 
 sent to prison. No 
 harm was known of the 
 other children, but the 
 crime of their brother 
 threw suspicion upon 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 finement in prison ; he could get work nowhere, 
 and stalked defiantly about the town, his hands 
 in his pockets, regarding every one with an insult- 
 ing stare, which was infinitely more pitiable than 
 the shamefacedness of his innocent brothers. When 
 Clara Helps asked if any of the boys could do the 
 carpenter work for her 
 screen, Mrs. Crowdy shook 
 her head ; " No one un- 
 less Robert ; he mended 
 the pigpen quite beauti- 
 ful ; they kept him at car- 
 penter work over there." 
 At the mention of " over 
 there," Clara blushed, for 
 Rob. Crowdy was leaning against the side of the 
 house with his thumb thrust into the bowl of 
 his clay pipe, which he had just extinguished 
 "out of respect to the young lady." He saw 
 the blush at the reference to the' prison, and an 
 answering one flamed on his dark cheek, the 
 first signal of returning self-respect which he had 
 exhibited. " I '11 try my hand at it," he said, and 
 a very workmanlike piece of furniture it was when 
 
I06 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 completed. He took the broken pieces of tea-boxes, 
 with some pictures of foreign cabinets and book- 
 cases to give him an idea, and returned them changed 
 into a little cabinet for curiosities. The frame- 
 work consisted of four long bamboo rods, the back 
 of a long strip of looking-glass cut from a broken 
 mirror, reflecting with good effect the objects 
 placed upon the shelves. Mr. McCash, the owner 
 of the slate-quarries and factory, saw the screen and 
 cabinet, and remarked that they showed extraordi- 
 nary taste and skill. Clara interested him in her 
 protege ; the result was that Mr. McCash took 
 Robert Crowdy into his employ, not as an under- 
 ling, but as foreman in the new establishment for 
 combining slate with artistic furniture ; in this di- 
 rection Miss Pinkey's slate ornamentation was after- 
 ward turned, with more profit to herself than the 
 old work for the agent had ever brought. Very 
 beautiful are the panelled desks, sideboards, etageres, 
 cabinets, etc., which foreman Crowdy will now show 
 you (should you ever visit the works), decorated with 
 Miss Pinkey's tiles, and adapted by him, from seri- 
 ous studies of furniture, in the styles of the Cinque 
 Cento, the Renaissance, and others. Suddenly, too, 
 
VENICE GARDENS. 
 
 107 
 
 all the Crowdy boys discovered that they had spines 
 in their backs and necks capable of holding their 
 heads as high as those of any of the boys in the 
 village; Rob lost all his bravado, and applied him- 
 self to work in a modest and industrious way that 
 plainly showed he remembered the past and was try- 
 ing to make amends. 
 
 And for this act, the saving of a desperate soul 
 from ruin, the Committee on Awards for the Vene- 
 tians gave the grand prize of Venice, the order of 
 Titian, to Clara Helps. 
 
* 
 
VERMILION. 
 
 WAR PAINT. 
 
 T was Ruby's birthday, 
 and Papa Rose had giv- 
 en up the studio to the 
 children for a grand 
 birthday party. Mrs. 
 Rose invited all of Ru- 
 by's friends, for the 
 most part boys, though 
 there were a few girls, 
 and among them, of course, 
 Flossy Tangleskein. 
 
 It was a day of unre- 
 strained romp and frolic. 
 Mr. Rose had put the more 
 fragile of his treasures un- 
 der lock and key, and the 
 children took this as tacit permission to make free 
 with whatever was left. The favorite game was 
 
112 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Big Injin. Half of the party represented Custer 
 and his men, and half with rich costumes fantas- 
 tically draped about them, their faces daubed with 
 paint from the palette, were the Indians. Ruby 
 was chief; he had tied his mother's false curls on 
 his toy gun to represent scalps, and had fenced a 
 number of plaster-casts, which he called his pale- 
 faced prisoners, into a 'corner with chairs. Flossy, 
 who had seen Rosedale, was frequently heard sing- 
 ing in a shrill voice, — 
 
 " The Indian sung 
 In his native tongue, 
 Kerchujulum, chujulum, chu ju lum jum 
 Luddy fuddy hi o uddy i o ! " 
 
 A chorus which was received on each repetition as 
 a grand linguistic triumph. They were having what 
 Ruby denominated as " a regular high old time " ; but 
 even such elevated happiness cannot be enjoyed for- 
 ever. They grew tired after a while ; then the refresh- 
 ments were passed around, and after these were dis- 
 posed of they all felt in the mood for quieter fun. 
 
 " Supposing we call the Bo — " began Ruby, who 
 then stopped suddenly, remembering the vow of 
 eternal secrecy, and looked inquiringly at Flossy. 
 
WAR PAINT. 
 
 " Let 's," was Flossy's brief reply to his question- 
 ing look; but before they had time to make the 
 experiment Uncle Wylde Rose stepped into the 
 room, and seating himself upon the model-stand 
 lifted two of the younger children to his knee with 
 the question, " How would you like to have me tell 
 you a story." 
 
 "Ever so much," was echoed upon all sides, and 
 Uncle Wylde began. Ruby first stipulated that 
 there should be lots of fighting and hidden treasure 
 and blood in it. 
 
 " OfT the shores of Maine, not far from the place 
 where I was born, towers a rocky island, called 
 Mount Desert. On one of its bare cliffs there is 
 a long, irregular scarlet stain ; the snows and storms 
 of a hundred winters have not been able to wash it 
 out, and there are many legends as to its origin. 
 Some maintain that it is a stain of blood, marking 
 the spot of some dreadful murder: — 
 
 * Of lonely folk cut off unseen, 
 And hid in sudden graves ; 
 Of horrid stabs in groves forlorn 
 And murders done in caves. 
 
 For blood has left upon the rock 
 Its everlasting stain.' 
 
ii4 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " There are matter-of-fact geologists who say 
 that the stain is caused by iron in the rock ; but 
 I reject both the scientific and the horrible ex- 
 planations, and prefer to believe another tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 " Many years ago the castle of Castine crowned 
 one of the peaks of the Pyrenees. From its high- 
 est tower you looked north- 
 ward far away over the land 
 1 ""V o f c 1 a r e t 
 
 fair, sunny 
 France ; and 
 southward 
 to other 
 
 vineyards and olive-groves in sunnier Spain. Toward 
 the east the mountains rose in higher and higher 
 peaks, and in the west there was a line of blue, which 
 meant the sea. Here lived the old Baron Castine, 
 and with him his niece Isabel. The baron's chief 
 employment was hunting bears in the mountains. 
 He had one son, Vincent, the darling of his heart, 
 who had been sent to Paris to study and grow ele- 
 gant, accomplished, and wicked. He was a faithful 
 
WAR PAINT. 
 
 correspondent, and many letters passed between 
 them, considering the limited postal accommodations 
 of the age. Vincent's letters generally asked for 
 more money, and the father's usually contained it, for 
 in spite of his spendthrift tendency he was a brilliant 
 young man; he had been offered a position in the 
 king's own body-guard, and of course needed money 
 to maintain the credit of the family. Bear-hunting 
 was not an expensive recreation ; Isabel was a girl, 
 hence it was no more proper for her to wish to study 
 or spend money than to hunt bears, so the old 
 baron thought, and therefore all of his ready money 
 was sent to Vincent. This seemed quite satisfactory 
 to Isabel and to the baron, and they talked of the 
 brilliant career opening to their idol as they sat to- 
 gether beside the great fire in the carved stone fire- 
 place. Girls had their appropriate field, according 
 to the old baron's notion, in which it was quite 
 improper for men to intermeddle; this field was 
 religion ; here he expected Isabel to represent the 
 family, and to do praying and church-going enough 
 for himself and Vincent; indeed, Isabel was consid- 
 ered by all who knew her devout enough not only 
 for three, but for twenty ordinary people. Her con- 
 
Il6 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 fessor was very strict, and there gloomed down upon 
 them from above the carved mantel a portrait of 
 Torquemada, the cruel inquisitor ; he caused peo- 
 ple to be burned to death who did not profess what 
 he thought was the true religion. The sallow face 
 and evil eyes of the portrait had a strange fascina- 
 tion for Isabel, and she wished that her life had 
 been cast in times when she could have made some 
 great sacrifice for the church, — have sent Vincent 
 off to the Crusades for the recovery of Jerusalem, 
 or to torture in the secret rooms of the Inquisition. 
 She loved Vincent more than her life but his soul 
 still more, and would have unhesitatingly ruined 
 all his earthly happiness to save him from purga- 
 tory. 
 
 " At last the old baron died. Vincent was baron 
 now ; he came back . from Paris to take posses- 
 sion of his inheritance, and in spite of the shadow 
 which his father's death threw upon them, they were 
 very happy, for Vincent had asked Isabel to be his 
 wife. Just at this time the castle was visited by a 
 travelling Jesuit priest, named Father Rolle, who 
 was preaching a new crusade throughout France 
 and Spain. He told them that bands of heretic 
 
WAR PAINT. 
 
 117 
 
 Protestants, most wisely and properly driven from 
 all Christian countries, were fleeing over seas, and 
 taking refuge in that new and goodly land, dedi- 
 cated by its discoverer to their Catholic majesties, 
 Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain ; that they bid fair 
 to expel the cross, which Columbus had planted, for- 
 ever from its shores, and that the crusade which 
 he was preaching was the rescue of America from 
 the heretic Puritans. Vincent de Castine, young, 
 thirsting for adventure and military exploit, accept- 
 ed the high position which Father Rolle offered 
 him in the enterprise ; Isabel herself, won by the 
 crafty reasoning of the Jes- 
 uit, urged him to go and 
 aid in the holy war. He 
 went with Rolle to Maine, 
 where the priest established 
 a mission among the Nor- 
 ridgewock Indians on the 
 Kennebec River, converting 
 a great many of them to 
 the Catholic faith, and per- 
 suading them to hunt out and kill the Puritans. 
 Before the door of his little chapel he hung a ban- 
 
Il8 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 ner, upon which he had rudely painted a cross; be- 
 neath an Indian bow and quiver filled with arrows, 
 urging them in picture-language, which is so much 
 stronger than that of words, to take up arms for 
 the cross, and promising heaven for all who fell. 
 The young baron built himself a fortress on Mount 
 Desert; the rocky mountain reminded him of his 
 home, and — 
 
 ' The surf at its foot had the self-same roar 
 As that which broke on the Biscay shore.' 
 
 The French government, which had other reasons 
 besides religious ones for expelling the Puritans 
 from New England, sent him from time to time 
 shiploads of guns and ammunition ; these he dis- 
 tributed among the Indians. 
 
 " Isabel, in her lofty turret, prayed for the good 
 cause as she bent over her embroidery, — beau- 
 tiful altar-cloths, banners, screens, and tapestries, 
 which she sold throughout Europe, sending him 
 the proceeds in coins of the different countries 
 where she found sale for her work. England, 
 Spain, Italy, Belgium, and France were all repre- 
 sented. She also sent another chest filled with 
 vermilion or war paint, for the Indians. Castine's 
 
WAR PAINT. 
 
 II 9 
 
 work in America was all too successful. Our his- 
 tories tell of the massacres committed by his In- 
 dians ; but the gifts of Lady 
 Isabel were not destined to 
 assist in it. Without know- 
 ing it she had collected 
 the chest of silver for a 
 large family of poor chil- 
 dren who were to enjoy it 
 in our day. Sir Edmund 
 Andros, then the Governor 
 of Massachusetts, sailed up 
 the bay in his frigate Rose, 
 and Castine fled, carrying 
 the two chests with him ; 
 fr$\ IILrK 4 ^1%^Z^ but finding that thev im- 
 
120 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 peded his flight the chest of paint was first thrown 
 over the cliff, and next that containing the silver 
 was buried. On his return to the fortress he was 
 unable to find the spot where the concealed treas- 
 ure lay, and this money remained undiscovered until 
 comparatively a few years since, when it was found 
 by the mother of the poor children whom I just 
 mentioned. This strange collection of miscellaneous 
 coins was for a long time the puzzle of antiqua- 
 rians ; among them was found one with Blessed be 
 the Name of the Lord engraved upon its border in 
 Latin : 1 Benedictum sit nomen domini.' People 
 point to the stain upon the rock as the place where 
 the chest of vermilion was spilt; Isabel's labor was 
 thrown away, as all labor is which is given to War 
 Paint." 
 
 " How horrible it seems," said Flossy, " that those 
 people really thought they were serving God by 
 murdering each other." 
 
 " We have not got so very far beyond them in 
 our own day," remarked Uncle Wylde. " War still 
 exists, and according to the laws of all Christian 
 nations we murder those who have committed mur- 
 der. Will it be so, I wonder, when you boys are 
 
WAR PAINT. 
 
 I 2 I 
 
 men ? Shall I ever hear sharp, keen-witted Frank, 
 as a talented lawyer, pleading that one of his play- 
 mates be hung? Will tender-hearted John, then 
 a learned judge, give the dreadful sentence with the 
 black cap on his golden hair ? Will Governor Gus 
 decline the petition for pardon through fear of being 
 asked to resign? and who, I wonder, will be hang- 
 man? Or will you decide, when your chance for 
 voting and mak- 
 ing laws comes, 
 that there shall 
 be no more judi- 
 cial murder, and 
 wash the 
 stain of vermilion 
 from the noble 
 palette of our native land ? " 
 
 " And now," said Tint, " I suppose you want to 
 know what the light green freckle on my face is, 
 that looks like a great round pea. Do you happen 
 to know what malachite is ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Flossy ; " it is a kind of streaky 
 green stone. Mamma has some sleeve-buttons of 
 it that came from Russia." 
 
122 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " Well, that freckle is Malachite Green," said Tint. 
 " People don't paint with stones, do they ? " asked 
 Ruby Rose, incredulously. 
 
 " They don't, eh ? " replied Carrie, sharply. " What 
 was it with which you made that elegant and strik- 
 mKmgmrmummmgmgi m g portrait of the schoolmaster 
 
 on the gate-post of the gram- 
 IkS ■ mar school?" 
 
 " Yellow chalk ; but who said 
 I made it ? " replied Ruby Rose, 
 in a whisper. 
 
 " And chalk is stone," ex- 
 claimed Flossy; "and I heard 
 your father say he meant to go to the Pictured 
 Rocks for his next vacation; may be they have 
 something to do with this kind of painting." 
 
 "Not much," replied Tint; "but malachite, just 
 such as your mother's sleeve-buttons are made of, is 
 used largely in a kind of rock-pictures that people 
 call mosaics ; keep your ears and eyes open, and you 
 may hear and see something about them before we 
 meet again. Some one is coming, and I can't talk 
 any more, just now." 
 
MALACHITE GREEN. 
 
MALACHITE GREEN 
 
 THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 " Peg 
 
 LOSSY Tangleskein was 
 playing marbles. She 
 knew it was a boy's 
 game, and not exactly 
 the proper thing for a girl, 
 that is for a great girl eleven 
 
 years old ; but she liked boys' 
 games best, and especially 
 "mibbles," for this was what 
 she and Ruby Rose and the 
 other boys in the neighbor- 
 hood called them, 
 was a very good game if 
 one's top was a tiptop article ; but for October there 
 was nothing so fashionable in their society as " In 
 the Bunny," and " Knock Up." Almost all women 
 like to be fashionable, and Flossy was only a little 
 
 the 
 
 Ring" 
 
126 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 woman. I do not know how it may be where you 
 live, but in Flossy's set every child knew what par- 
 ticular game was in season, and would no more 
 trunk of playing marbles out of their proper months 
 than of going coasting on the Fourth of July. Flossy 
 had a very correct eye, and usually took an accurate 
 aim ; it seemed as if there must be a steel spring 
 inside her pink little thumb which sent her marbles 
 snap, just where she wanted them, with as much force 
 as if they had been shot out of a pop-gun. Flossy 
 was honorable; always was fair and never played 
 keeps, and the boys in the neighborhood liked to 
 play with her. She kept her marbles in a little 
 silk bag: two glass ones, with colored spirals inside 
 (which the boys called " agates," to the honor of 
 the Professor of Geology, who sometimes stopped 
 in the park on his way to and from the institute, 
 and watched them play) ; these Flossy had borrowed 
 from grandma's solitaire-board ; three " alleys " and 
 a "bull's-eye" that Ruby Rose gave her, with two 
 elaborately decorated " chineys," encircled by wreaths 
 of gayly-colored flowers, and six little mud-colored 
 " commonys " bought with the money which she first 
 earned for the missionaries, and then changed her 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 127 
 
 mind. But some way she never had luck with any 
 except the " alleys " and the " bull's-eye " ; the pret- 
 tiest " agate " broke right in two against a " blood- 
 alley" of Mikey O'Leary's the first time she used 
 it, and her " missionaries," as Ruby called them, 
 always burned her fingers ; she never could get the 
 thought out of her mind that the money ought to 
 have gone to the Cannibal Islands. Ruby Rose 
 had a disagreeable way of alluding to them. For 
 instance, one afternoon Flossy looked up from a 
 book she was reading and asked, " What are mo- 
 saics, papa?" Her father replied,. " They are paint- 
 ings made by joining different colored marbles 
 together, like the pieces of a dissected' map." Ruby 
 immediately asked, "Any 'commony's' or 'chineys,' 
 or won't those kinds of marbles do ? " Her father 
 did not understand, and so did not reply, and Ruby 
 went out of the room singing softly to himself, 
 while his fingers twitched an imaginary pair of 
 clappers, — 
 
 " If I were a Cassowary, 
 
 And lived in Timbuctoo, 
 I would eat a missionary, 
 
 Hat and band, and hymn-book, too." 
 
128 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Flossy 's face flamed crimson ; to cover her confusion 
 and prevent questions which she feared, she asked 
 quickly, " Won't you tell me some more about mo- 
 saics, papa ? " 
 
 " Do you remember the rising sun bed-quilt at 
 Aunt Toothaker's ? " asked her father, laying aside 
 his newspaper. 
 
 " O yes," replied Flossy ; " it was made of patch- 
 work; there was a great orange 
 sun on one side ; the rays were 
 little pieces of red and orange 
 and pink calico spread all over 
 the bed. I used to think it 
 very pretty when I was a little 
 girl." 
 
 " Mosaic is very much like 
 that," said Mr. Tangleskein ; " the pieces are of 
 stone instead of calico, fitted together with such 
 skill that very beautiful pictures are formed in 
 this way. They have the advantage of being much 
 more durable than oil-paintings. The finest pic- 
 ture in the world — Raphael's Transfiguration, in 
 the church of St. Peter's — is made in this way, as 
 are all the other paintings in this building. Ghir- 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 129 
 
 landajo, an artist whose name, by the way, means 
 wreaths .or garlands, (and who was so named be- 
 cause he began life as a silversmith, and made 
 these ornaments very prettily), called mosaics, ' the 
 only painting for eternity.' I have a bit of mosaic 
 which I will show you." Mr. Tangleskein unlocked 
 his desk, and opening a small box, took from it an 
 unset mosaic, of very minute bits, made in the 
 Roman style. It represented three doves standing 
 upon an urn, with a background of dark green 
 malachite. 
 
 " O, how lovely ! " exclaimed Flossy. " What a 
 beautiful pendant it would make for the necklace 
 auntie gave me on my birthday. Please, please, 
 papa, give it to me." 
 
 " I will," said her father, thoughtfully, " when I 
 think you deserve it; otherwise you would not keep 
 it. These little bits of marble have the marvel- 
 lous faculty of remaining in the possession of those 
 alone who have earned a right to them by denying 
 themselves in some way, — doing something which 
 was personally disagreeable, or giving up some pleas- 
 ure for the sake of others. It belonged once to your 
 grandmamma, whose portrait, taken when she was 
 
130 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 young, hangs over the piano, and whom every one 
 says you resemble. It was brought to her from Italy 
 by her father, who was a sea-captain ; she wore it as 
 a brooch, and valued it more than any of her other 
 pieces of jewelry. Grandpa Tangleskein admired it 
 very much, as he did its owner, to whom he was then 
 engaged to be married. He loved her even more 
 than he did his pinch of snuff, which was saying a 
 great deal, for he thought as much of that as young 
 men now-a-days do of their cigars. But Grandma 
 Tangleskein could n't bear snuff, — and what do 
 you think she did ? She had her beautiful mosaic 
 set in the lid of a handsome silver snuff-box; and 
 one day when grandpa called, she handed it to 
 him, saying, ' Here is a present for you, Barzillai.' 
 
 " ' For me ! ' exclaimed Grandpa Tangleskein. 
 
 " ' Yes,' said grandma, ' on two conditions.' 
 
 " ' On as many as you choose,' said Grandpa Tan- 
 gleskein. 
 
 " * First, that you shall never carry any other snuff- 
 box.' 
 
 " ' Of course not,' said Grandpa Tangleskein. 
 " ' Second, that you will always carry this one 
 empty,' stipulated grandma. 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. I 3 1 
 
 '"What then shall I carry my snuff in?' 
 
 " 1 Don't carry any snuff, Barzillai.' 
 
 "'Don't you like snuff?' asked grandpa. 
 
 " ' Not a bit,' said grandma, ' it makes me sneeze.' 
 And Grandpa Tangleskein feeling that this argu- 
 ment was not to be sneezed at, gallantly prom- 
 ised then and there never to use any more snuff. 
 After he had been married a great many years 
 he felt that the promise had been extorted from 
 him unfairly, and one day he bought some fine 
 Scotch snuff, and filled the box 
 with it. How he did enjoy that 
 first pinch ! He sneezed three 
 times, sneezed as he had n't since 
 he was married ; sneezed till the tears ran down 
 his cheeks. But on his way home a lady in the 
 street-car asked him to close the window behind 
 her. The lady was a pickpocket, and while grandpa 
 was politely shutting the window she slipped her . 
 hand into his coat-pocket and stole the snuff-box. 
 When grandpa discovered his loss she had left the 
 car. Then he was sorry enough, I can tell you ; 
 he put a detective on her track, and vowed that if he 
 ever got his box back he would never take another 
 
132 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 pinch of snuff as long as he lived. The box came 
 back, and this time Grandpa Tangleskein kept his 
 vow." 
 
 " And how did you get it, pa- 
 
 pa 
 
 " After grandpa died grandma 
 said that I might have it if I 
 would give up smoking ; being 
 her only child, I thought the box 
 would become mine anyhow, and 
 so I did not do as she wished. 
 Then grandma gave it to a certain 
 Miss Brown, and she imposed the 
 same condition, and I consented, 
 for I was afraid that she would not 
 marry me if I did not ; remem- 
 bering grandpa's experience, I 
 kept my promise." 
 
 " And Miss Brown is mamma ? " 
 "Yes, my dear. I cannot think of any bad habit 
 which I wish you to break. Perhaps your worst 
 fault is this ; you are inclined to be selfish. When 
 I see you do some really self-denying generous ac- 
 tion I shall know how to reward it." 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 133 
 
 This conversation made a deep impression upon 
 Flossy. She was really not a bit more generous 
 than before, but she was continually on the look- 
 out for occasions when she might display a self-deny- 
 ing spirit. When the fruit cake was passed, instead 
 of saying, " How mean of you to take the biggest 
 piece, I wanted it," she remarked, " No, I thank 
 you, I am very fond of fruit cake, but I am afraid 
 there is not enough to go around." Her mother 
 looked vexed, for there was company ; her father 
 laughed, but said nothing about the mosaic. At 
 length a first-rate occasion presented itself. Her 
 mother received a letter from Aunt Toothaker, say- 
 ing that she was coming to make them a visit, and 
 would probably stay all winter. " The worst of it 
 is," said mamma, " Aunt Toothaker is very fond of 
 an open fire, and there is no way of heating the 
 spare room except by the furnace." There was a 
 grate in Flossy's room, and Flossy spoke up so 
 quickly that it had all the appearance of an unpre- 
 meditated gush of good nature, " Let Aunt Tooth- 
 aker have my room, mamma, and I will sleep on 
 the couch in your little sewing-room while she stays." 
 Papa gave Flossy a quizzical glance, but she looked 
 
134 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 delightfully unconscious. As Flossy put on her 
 overshoes in the hall she heard her mamma say ; 
 " Now that is what I call a beautiful self-denying 
 spirit," and she ran down the steps to school, her 
 cheeks burning for very shame, and the missionary 
 
 marbles making a fearful clat- 
 ter in her pocket. When she 
 came home there was the cov- 
 eted mosaic on her pin-cush- 
 ion ; it looked so handsome 
 with her necklace that she 
 could not bear to confess how 
 little she deserved it ; she was 
 to sing that evening at a little 
 concert, too, and she choked 
 down a vague desire which she 
 at first felt to hand it back to 
 her father. " How proud she is," 
 said the other girls ; " did you notice how high she held 
 her chin, so that every one should see her necklace ? " 
 
 A day or two afterward when Flossy moved her 
 things into the little sewing-room the mosaic was 
 not to be found; and yet she was sure that she 
 had placed it on her pin-cushion when she went 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 1 35 
 
 to school that morning, and so she had, but she 
 was late, and in her hurry had neglected to close 
 the front door. She passed a strange woman on 
 her hurried way, who seemed to be scrutinizing 
 the door-plates in search of some particular name. 
 The woman was what is called a sneak^thief ; she 
 walked slow r ly along the street till her sharp eye 
 detected the very narrow crack which told that Mr. 
 Tangleskein's front door was not quite closed. With 
 a catlike tread she mounted the steps, listened, pushed 
 the door open a little further, took a good strong 
 sniff of the pleasant perfume of coffee which came 
 up from the dining-room, stepped into the hall, lis- 
 tened again, and then, as the clatter of dishes as- 
 sured her that the family were still at breakfast, 
 mounted swiftly and silently to the next floor. 
 Flossy's door stood wide open ; in another min- 
 ute her necklace and mosaic had slipped into the 
 strange woman's pocket, and the woman herself left 
 the house as silently as she had entered it. 
 
 Now you will think that the mosaic had lost its 
 marvellousness, for certainly the thief deserved it 
 even less than Flossy. But you will see in a mo- 
 ment that the little doves of peace still retained 
 
136 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 their magical power of remaining only with the 
 worthy. As the woman left the house an omnibus 
 passed, and thinking that she could escape observa- 
 tion in it more quickly than by any other way, she 
 hailed it and entered. A gentleman in a cloth cape, 
 with his hands conspicuously crossed upon his lap, 
 
 politely made room for her, crowding the lady just 
 beyond him a little as he did so. A moment later 
 this lady exclaimed : " I have lost my purse ! " Every 
 one looked sympathetic, the gentleman in the long 
 cloak rose that she might see if she had dropped 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 137 
 
 it, but the search was useless. The lady herself 
 thought of the crowding and wondered if this gen- 
 tleman could be a pickpocket, but that was not pos- 
 sible, for his neatly gloved hands had lain perfectly 
 motionless before him all the time. Shortly after 
 the gentleman alighted the woman who had stolen 
 Flossy 's necklace slipped her hand into her pocket, 
 — the necklace was gone! The man was a pick- 
 pocket; the hands which the passengers had seen 
 were only stuffed ones ; his real fingers were free 
 under the folds of the cloak to examine the pock- 
 ets of his neighbors. 
 
 People say there is honor among thieves, so per- 
 haps if he had known that the mosaic was stolen 
 he would not have taken it, but even this is doubt- 
 ful ; it mattered very little whether he took it or 
 not, for the power, more wonderful than that which 
 was supposed to reside in the philosopher's stone, 
 still wrought in the little mosaic, drawing it to 
 some one who should own it rightfully, just as a 
 little particle of steel acknowledges the attractive 
 power of a magnet. 
 
 Huey Hannagan was playing in the park with 
 his dog Peeler. Huey would have resented being 
 
138 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 called a pickpocket, but he acknowledged to him- 
 self that Peeler was one. Peeler was a very sharp 
 dog, and had had careful training; he would stand 
 on his hind-legs and balance a lump of 
 ^u£*# sugar on his nose while Huey said one, 
 two, three, fire ! when the last word came, 
 that lump of sugar would disappear with 
 0 a snap, though until Huey gave the or- 
 IJ^^p der fire, the two followed the one, and 
 the three the two with tantalizing slow- 
 ness, and only a hungry roll of the eye betokened 
 the fact that Peeler was not a stuffed dog. But 
 Peeler's chief accomplishment was picking pockets. 
 He would prowl about in the park, watching for 
 handkerchiefs. Whenever he saw a heliotrope-scented 
 hem-stitched cambric showily protruding from the 
 pocket of a dandy's ulster, or the corner of a red 
 silk handkerchief drooping temptingly from some 
 old gentleman's coat-tail, Peeler made a quick jump, 
 one snap, and then was off with it as fast as his 
 four legs could carry him. Huey would chase the 
 dog, capture the handkerchief, and return it to its 
 owner, demanding and generally receiving a nickel 
 for his services ; he had been warned by the police 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 1 39 
 
 It was a good , chance 
 
 that his dog would be shot, and himself arrested, 
 if they persisted in their evil ways ; but nothing 
 had as yet come of it. As the gentleman in the 
 long cape passed through the 
 park he noticed that he was quite 
 alone ; only a little cur trotted 
 meditatively at his heels, having 
 left a boy, who was standing on 
 his head at the entrance, 
 to dispose of his stuffed hands; he cautiously un- 
 pinned them, threw his cloak over his arm, and was 
 
 cramming them inside the 
 breast of his coat when he 
 felt a sharp twitch at his 
 Jr trousers-pocket, and looking 
 back saw Peeler racing down 
 the park with his handkerchief in his mouth, the 
 necklace, which had fallen over his head, surround- 
 ing his neck like a collar, and the mosaic swaying 
 in padlock style behind. Of course he turned and 
 ran after Peeler. Huey, who had been standing on 
 his head, suddenly assumed his proper position, and 
 joined in the chase, outstripping the gentleman. 
 Now Peeler was the first who really deserved the 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 mosaic, for he had stolen it very cleverly, and in 
 doing so had performed his duty as well as he 
 knew it. But Peeler was a dog, and the laws of 
 eternal justice do not seem to apply to the mem- 
 bers of the canine race, for the mosaic allowed it- 
 self to be taken off of Peeler's neck by Huey with- 
 out making the slightest opposition. Now by a 
 strange fate Huey had a special admiration for Mr. 
 Tangleskein's chambermaid, though that young lady 
 was fully three years older than himself. He had 
 long been wanting to make her a present, and here 
 seemed to be the coveted opportunity, for the gen- 
 tleman in the long cloak, finding that he was at- 
 tracting attention by running, had turned back, and 
 was nowhere to be seen. And so it happened that 
 on the following day the necklace and mosaic found 
 their way back to the very house from which they 
 had been taken. 
 
 " Whist, Huey Hannagan ! " exclaimed the cham- 
 bermaid ; " ye have n't been stalin', have yees ? Sure 
 that 's the very crayther the young lady 's been 
 mournin' for." 
 
 But the chambermaid, although she recognized it, 
 could not make up her mind to return it. " Sure 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 141 
 
 I came by it honestly enough," she kept saying to 
 her troublesome conscience. She did not dare to 
 keep it in her own room for fear the police would 
 be called in to search it, and for a time the neck- 
 lace rested in her petticoat-pocket, but even this 
 did not seem to her a safe place. Aunt Toothaker 
 now occupied Flossy 's room ; she was a great inva- 
 lid, and was confined to her bed with an attack of 
 rheumatism, contracted while coming down in the 
 boat. She was not always able to rise and have 
 her bed made, and was quite unable to make it 
 herself. The chambermaid therefore concluded that 
 the best place to hide the necklace for the present 
 would be under Aunt Toothaker's mattress, and 
 accordingly slipped it in there. 
 
 And all this time Flossy was grieving, not be- 
 cause she no longer owned the mosaic, for she knew 
 she never had any right to it, and felt that it was 
 quite just she should be punished for her hypocrisy 
 by losing the necklace, too; but she could not for- 
 give herself that she had once owned the mosaic; 
 its loss was a grief to her father, and if he had 
 not given it to her it might still be resting in 
 his desk. She was heartily ashamed of her con- 
 
142 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 duct, too, and was doing her best to make repara- 
 tion. Aunt Toothaker made her a present of a 
 quarter of a dollar, and she at once invested a 
 part of it in two glass marbles for grandma's soli- 
 taire-board, and placed the money left from the 
 purchase in the long-defrauded mis- 
 sionary-box. Even then she could not 
 bear the sight of her little " mud- 
 colored missionaries," and she gave 
 them to a little boy of her acquaint- 
 "^3? ance, who had gone into a gambling 
 speculation with " Keeps," and lost all of his capi- 
 tal. She was trying her best now to do self-denying 
 things, not ostentatiously, but quietly, when she 
 thought no one would find it out. These she did 
 for the sake of the pleasurable sense of returning 
 self-respect which the doing of them gave her, and 
 with no thought that the mosaic would ever come 
 back. 
 
 She did not like Aunt Toothaker, for she was a 
 very complaining and unlovely invalid; but she forced 
 herself to go to her room often and do little kindly 
 things for her. " I wish Jane would make my bed 
 earlier," said Aunt Toothaker, pettishly, one day; 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 143 
 
 " I believe she leaves it on purpose until the very- 
 last." 
 
 " If I can make it well enough, auntie, I will do it 
 every morning before breakfast," 
 said Flossy. And this was a 
 very heroic offer on her part, 
 for she would have to get up a 
 full half hour earlier. Flossy 
 was very fond of her morning 
 nap, and had been heard to say 
 that if there was anything she 
 despised, it was making beds. Of 
 course she found her reward, for on turning the 
 heavy mattress over, — having first debated in her 
 mind whether it would not do just to punch it up 
 a little, but concluding that what was worth doing 
 at all was worth doing well, — what should meet 
 her astonished gaze, but the lost mosaic and neck- 
 lace. " I suppose I must have hidden them there 
 myself," she said, " instead of laying them on the 
 pin-cushion ; but it s funny, I don't remember one 
 speck about it, not one speck." 
 
 "You did it in your sleep," said Aunt Toothaker. 
 
 The mosaic adventure determined Flossy to call 
 
144 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 upon Tint for a story about " painting in stones." 
 But the Paint Bogy, on being summoned, declared 
 that Flossy had had quite enough of Malachite 
 Green. " However," said he, " before I tell you some- 
 thing about the next color on the palette, suppose 
 you let me know what you have learned about 
 mosaics." 
 
 " I know all about them," said Flossy, confidently, 
 " for father gave me some books to read, and after 
 I lost my mosaic I thought 
 if I could not have it to look 
 at any longer, I would have 
 it in my head any way, where 
 I could not lose it, and so I 
 read everything, and some was ever 
 so stupid, too." 
 
 " Tell me what you know about mo- 
 saics," said Tint, authoritatively, very 
 much in the sarcastic way that Flos- 
 sy's teacher, Miss Cramchild, would 
 remark on examination-day: " Miss Tan- 
 gleskein may write out an unabbreviated account of 
 everything she knows, and she is requested to so space 
 and elongate her statements that they shall partially 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 
 
 145 
 
 or approximately cover a half page of commercial 
 note." 
 
 Flossy drew a long breath. " Well, there are four 
 kinds," she said, at length ; " the Florentine, like 
 Aunt Kohinoor's black marble centre table, inlaid 
 with flowers and ribbons and banjos and things ; in 
 this kind each petal of the flowers seems to be 
 made of a single piece. Then there is the Roman 
 kind, which is much finer, and has an appearance 
 of worsted work on canvas. I read that the origi- 
 nal mosaic from which my doves were copied was 
 formed of such small stones that one hundred and 
 sixty pieces are contained in each square inch. There 
 
 are two other kinds, the Venetian and the Byzan- 
 tine, but some way I don't remember anything about 
 them ; perhaps it is because I never saw any." 
 Tint nodded approvingly. " The Florentine and 
 
146 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Roman kinds are the commonest ; enough for a 
 little girl like you to remember ; " and then he 
 asked, " Can you tell me where mosaics were first 
 invented ? " 
 
 " In Asia ; for Pliny, describing the dove mosaic, 
 informs us that he saw it in a temple at Pergamos. 
 Papa says that Pliny's description was such a good 
 one that the picture is called Pliny's Doves, and 
 not by the name of the artist. Probably it was 
 Pliny's glowing account which induced the Emperor 
 Hadrian to send artists to Pergamos, and have it 
 very carefully copied for his villa at Tivoli, near 
 Rome, among the ruins of which it was discovered 
 by Cardinal Furietti." 
 
 " And where is this mosaic now ? " asked Tint. 
 
 Flossy laughed, and replied: "Grandma Tangle- 
 skein declares that it is in some European Museum 
 of Iniquities; she meant Antiquities, I suppose. 
 Papa says it is in Rome, at the Museum of the 
 Capitol. There also is the statue of the Dying- 
 Gladiator, and the Faun that Hawthorne wrote about. 
 I have found out why Ghirlandajo called mosaics 
 'painting for eternity.'" 
 
 "This is only one of the great mosaic pictures," 
 
THE MARVELLOUS MARBLES. 147 
 
 said Tint. " There are many very old stone paint- 
 ings in the churches of Florence and Venice and 
 Pisa ; some of them are of immense size. That this 
 kind of decoration was used very commonly for walls 
 and pavements by the ancient Romans, old Vesu- 
 vius has taught us by its preservation of Pompeii 
 in a. d. 79." 
 
 " Preservation of Pompeii ! " repeated Flossy, in 
 surprise ; " you mean destruction, do you not ? " 
 
 " I mean preservation," replied Tint, sharply. " Of 
 all the cities which existed in Italy at the same 
 time with Pompeii, how many remain so complete 
 to-day? Every wagon-rut in the streets, every arti- 
 cle of furniture, of dress, or of food in the houses, 
 is perfect; every painting as bright and uninjured 
 as it was eighteen hundred years ago." 
 
 " I should not like to be preserved that way, 
 though," remarked Flossy, meditatively ; " it must be 
 something like preserved crabs, very nice for the 
 people who are going to open the can, but not very 
 interesting for the crabs." 
 
 " Every one must die sometime, and these people 
 were covered by the soft ashes just as the babes in 
 the woods were buried in the leaves. There were 
 
148 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 many starving people there who would never be 
 hungry any more, many enemies who have lain side 
 by side ever since, with never an angry word pass- 
 ing between them, for — 
 
 'The sulphurous rifts of passion and war 
 
 Lie deep 'neath a silence calm and smooth, 
 Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.' 
 
 I will tell you a story of the volcano when we come 
 to Naples Yellow." 
 
 Perhaps the younger readers will be more inter- 
 ested to turn directly to this promised story of Tint's ; 
 that on Silver White, which comes next, is too old 
 for the younger heads. It may attract some of the 
 older children who care for Art. 
 
SILVER WHITE. 
 
SILVER WHITE. 
 
 THE CHRIST-CHILD OF THE LOUVRE. 
 
 HITE signifies purity, 
 innocence, faith, joy, 
 and light," began 
 Tint. " Can you tell 
 me what day to-mor- 
 row will be ? " 
 
 " Christmas Day," 
 exclaimed both of the 
 children in a breath. 
 
 " And when I say that there was never but one 
 child whose character seemed expressed by the sym- 
 bol white, and this child was born on Christmas 
 Day, you will know whom I mean ? " The children 
 nodded gravely. 
 
 " Have you ever wondered," was Tint's next ques- 
 tion, " what the baby Jesus looked like ? It may be 
 interesting to you in this Christmas season to know 
 
152 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 how a few of the greatest painters imagined him. 
 You both know what the word revival means, and 
 that there may be revivals of other things than re- 
 ligion. During the latter half of the fifteenth and 
 the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, there was 
 a great Art revival, — a general awakening and ex- 
 citement on the subject of painting all over Europe, 
 and especially in Italy. Each of the more impor- 
 tant Italian cities had her great painter. High 
 among its many illustrious names Florence wreathed 
 with garlands that of Leonardo da Vinci; and Ven- 
 ice, as though this was a challenge, sent flashing 
 back a still greater name, — that of Titian. Bologna 
 named the Caracci as her favorites, while Parma and 
 Modena presented rival claims for Correggio; and 
 Rome carried off the palm when she could boast of 
 Raphael. 
 
 " Try to remember the names of these artists, and 
 the cities which they represented: — 
 
 Raphael Rome, 
 
 Titian 
 
 Correggio 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 Caracci 
 
 Venice, 
 Florence, 
 Bologna, 
 Parma. 
 
THE CHRIST-CHILD OF THE LOUVRE. 1 53 
 
 Now let us see how all of these artists painted the 
 Christ-Child. Raphael, the prince of painters, is the 
 one who has left the most portrait guesses at the 
 appearance of the Divine baby, any one of which 
 is exquisite enough to have been a true portrait. 
 They are so many and so varied that it seems as if 
 some one of them must be the true Christ-Child. 
 That best known, whose sweetly serious face satisfies, 
 perhaps, the conception of most people, is the babe 
 in the arms of the Sistine Madonna, of the Dresden 
 Gallery. Almost every child knows the two cherub 
 faces that look up from the clouds under the Vir- 
 gin's feet. But the Gallery of the Louvre, in Paris, 
 contains a Madonna called La Belle Jardiniere, or 
 The Gardener's Beautiful Daughter; she holds by 
 the hand an infant Christ, of equally enchanting- 
 loveliness. It is the most fascinating picture in the 
 great gallery; no other painter has realized so per- 
 fectly the ideal of innocence and purity. Like every 
 other work of this master, — 
 
 ' The picture has the gracious air that tells 
 The hand that painted it was Raphael's.' 
 
 There are only two other artists whose work can 
 in any way compare with that of Raphael, and they 
 are the rival masters of Venice and Florence. 
 
154 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " Titian represents the child at play with a rab- 
 bit. The introduction of the little pet animal into 
 the picture makes us feel that the characters in the 
 scene really lived and enjoyed life on this very same 
 earth, instead of sitting always upon clouds in mid- 
 air. Titian lived to be a very old 
 man, dying at the age of ninety- 
 nine, not from old age, but a vic- 
 tim to the terrible plague which 
 swept away children and strong 
 men. He painted up to his death, 
 saying a short time before it, ' I 
 only begin to understand what painting is.' 
 
 u The Christ-Child of Leonardo da Vinci also ca- 
 resses a pet ; in this instance the more conventional 
 and typical lamb. The picture overflows with the 
 expression of love and tenderness. The child looks 
 up with the deepest affection into his mother's ador- 
 ing face; the Virgin, herself, is seated in the lap of 
 her mother, St. Anna, who holds her daughter with 
 a proudly encircling arm, beaming down upon the 
 group a smile such as Da Vinci alone knew how 
 to paint. She is the most charming of grandmoth- 
 ers, and her smile has been described as one of 
 
THE CHRIST-CHILD OF THE LOUVRE. 1 55 
 
 wondrous content, summing up all human emotion 
 in a transfigured expression of perfect happiness. 
 It is a picture which makes one long to be a grand- 
 mother. 
 
 " A mirthful spirit is portrayed in Caracci's Vierge 
 au Silence; it contains a bewitching little St. John, 
 who is tickling the feet of the sleeping Christ-Child 
 in a mischief-loving and thoroughly boy-like way. 
 The Virgin shakes her finger at the roguish little 
 curly-head, in a way which says as plainly as words, 
 ' Naughty boy ! ' This Caracci was destined by his 
 father to be a tailor, but his cousin, Ludovico, see- 
 ing what a genius he possessed for painting, begged 
 that he might work in his studio. Perhaps he re- 
 membered the trials of his own youth as a butch- 
 er's boy ; when he began his artistic studies his 
 comrades ridiculed his stupidity, nicknaming him 
 4 Ox.' Even his master, the great Tintoretto, mis- 
 led by his plodding slowness, advised him to give 
 up painting. 
 
 " In an obscure town, half-way between Modena 
 and Parma, was born a great artist, of whom very 
 little is known. Even Vasari, who lived at the 
 same time, and wrote the histories of his artist 
 
156 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 contemporaries, has not been able to tell us much 
 of his life. His name, Allegri, might be translated 
 Mirthful (not an unpleasant title to bear), but we 
 have preferred to remember him by the name of 
 his birthplace, Correggio. He has left many paint- 
 ings of rare loveliness; not least among which is 
 The Marriage of St. Catharine. St. Catharine, 
 according to the Catholic legend, was the bride of 
 the Saviour. In this picture the infant Jesus, seated 
 on his mother's knee with baby awkwardness, is 
 trying to place a ring upon St. Catharine's finger. 
 The action is charmingly natural, and the expres- 
 sion of mother and bride is full of tender sweetness 
 and interest, while the tints of the painting are of 
 that refinement and delicacy which give Correggio 
 his high rank as a colorist. 
 
 " All of these paintings are in the Gallery of the 
 Louvre, where you may hunt them out for your- 
 selves when you go to Europe. Here, too, are La 
 Vierge de Seville of Murillo, and La Vierge aux 
 Donateurs of Van Dyck, representatives of the Span- 
 ish and Flemish schools. Murillo's painting is more 
 supernatural and mystical in treatment than the other 
 pictures. God the Father is represented in the 
 
THE CHRIST-CHILD OF THE LOUVRE. 1 57 
 
 guise of an old man stooping from the clouds and 
 blessing the group, while a dove, typifying the Holy 
 Spirit, floats over their heads ; a number of chubby 
 little angels are kicking and sprawling about in the 
 air. The faces of the Madonna and child have 
 genuine earthly babyhood and motherhood in them. 
 In his picture Van Dyck has represented a good 
 old Dutch burgomaster and his wife, probably his 
 patrons. Having ordered this picture they undoubt- 
 edly thought it a good opportunity to have their 
 own portraits taken, thus economically accomplish- 
 ing two objects at the same time. The worthy 
 couple, with their honest faces and exaggerated 
 ruffs, kneel piously before the Madonna, while the 
 babe, a genuine roguish little Puck, tweaks in merry 
 mood the gray mustache of the kneeling gentle- 
 man. Even when attempting so sacred a subject 
 as this, the earlier artists were not afraid to be 
 funny. Some of them were unconsciously so. No 
 one ever accused Perugino of being a humorist ; ' 
 but his little gourmand in this gallery, with two 
 uplifted pudgy fingers, seems signalling an invisible 
 waiter to bring him something especially good 
 to eat. A still droller conception, executed, how- 
 
158 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 ever, with much sweetness, is furnished by Vanni's 
 Bambino wrapped in swaddling-clothes, after the 
 Italian fashion. It differs only from an Indian pap- 
 poose or an animated mummy, in having its arms 
 free ; conspicuous on one wrist is a coral bracelet. 
 A child-like smile lights up the droll little face as 
 he takes his food, which a winged angel is serv- 
 ing him on a plate. Joseph, in the mean time, com- 
 posedly eats a quantity of cherries, alone in a corner, 
 
 apparently fearing lest the 
 infant might cry for what 
 was prudently deemed un- 
 suitable for his tender years. 
 A lighter and more grace- 
 fully fantastic treatment of 
 the subject is shown by Parme- 
 gianino, who gives us a real val- 
 entine with two little loves em- 
 bracing. He calls them Christ 
 and St. John. 
 " The present list of examples from the Louvre 
 Gallery might be more than doubled, presenting 
 types differing widely from the ones we have been 
 studying; types corresponding to differences of race 
 
THE CHRIST-CHILD OF THE LOUVRE. 1 59 
 
 in the individual model ; varying according to the 
 imaginations of the artists, and the methods of their 
 several schools. Perhaps enough has been shown 
 by this brief glance at the works of a few masters; 
 they were, with but two exceptions, of the same 
 nationality, and nearly the same period. We have 
 passed from artists who painted, with slavish real- 
 ism, the individual bambino posing before them, to 
 those who, with more of poetic fancy or humor, 
 gave us little Cupids and sprites of fairy-land. Then 
 we advanced to the few who have approached our 
 own highest ideal of the angelic and the divine, — 
 to hint at the infinity of dissimilar types which have 
 stood for the artist's ideal of the Christ-Child. Was 
 there ever a mother who did not at some time, when 
 her baby has looked up more caressingly than usual 
 into her face, fancy that the baby Jesus must have 
 looked like her own little one? And was not her 
 sense of ownership in the Christ-Child, the ' Unto 
 us a child is born,' made something more real by 
 this fancied resemblance ? There is also a view of 
 the matter for you little folks to take. If, when 
 you were babies, your mothers thought you resem- 
 bled the beautiful child Jesus, can you have -the 
 
i6o 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 heart to disappoint them as you grow older, by 
 developing un-Christ-like tendencies? 
 
 ' Not only in the Christmas tide 
 The holy baby lay ; 
 But month by month his home he blessed 
 And brightened every day. 
 
 1 He made the winter soft as spring, 
 
 The summer brave and clear, 
 For Christ, who lived for all the world, 
 Was part of all the year.' " 
 
 Just then Ruby's father entered the studio, and 
 Tint's arms shut up with a spasm, his legs dropped 
 off into an ordinary pile of brushes, his eyes gradu- 
 ally lost their expression and faded out of his face. 
 He made no resistance whatever when Mr. Rose 
 coolly slipped his thumb through the Paint Bogy's 
 mouth, and began scraping the Silver White off with 
 his palette-knife, remarking that it was " too dry 
 for anything." 
 
THE CHRIST-CHILD OF THE LOUVRE. l6l 
 
 The children did not hear any more stories dur- 
 ing the holidays following Tint's lecture on the 
 Christ-Child. They were such merry days, so full 
 of varied kinds of amusement, that the children al- 
 most forgot the Paint Bogies and their promise to 
 appear again if, alone in the studio, they were in- 
 voked according to a formula which Tint had given. 
 This invocation I cannot tell you here, for Tint 
 closed his remarks by warning the children never, 
 never to impart the secret to any one else. " If 
 you do," said he, — 
 
 " ' I have two horns as long as spears ; 
 / 7/ poke your eyes out at your ears? " 
 
 Beside, what would be the use of my telling these 
 stories if you could get them for nothing at first 
 hand ? 
 
 When school began again, and life took on its 
 regular humdrum, the children remembered the 
 promise of more stories; but the Saturdays were, 
 too, so precious as play-days that they could not 
 be given up to the Bogies ; the weeks flew by, 
 and now it was spring. 
 
NAPLES YELLOW. 
 
I 
 
NAPLES YELLOW. 
 
 NEAPOLITAN ORANGES. 
 
 S Naples a golden city, like 
 - i[ » iJi^Ji n the Heavenly Jerusalem ? " 
 
 asked Flossy of Tint on their 
 next meeting. 
 
 " No, indeed," replied the 
 Paint Bogy ; " what ever put 
 that into your head ? " 
 
 " Why, you said the next 
 paint on your face — I beg 
 
 /^""^ P?<| ^° Ur P ar< ^ 0n ' * mean tne next 
 
 freckle on your palette — was 
 
 Naples Yellow, and I did n't 
 
 know why you called it so." 
 
 " Let me see," replied the Paint Bogy, reflectively, 
 
 dabbling one of his paint-brush feet in the color (the 
 
 performance giving him very much the appearance of 
 
 scratching his cheek with his toes), "let me see; the 
 
1 66 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 yellowest thing in Naples, as I remember it, was the 
 oranges. They grow everywhere, and lie about the 
 
 by some little ragamuffin, with a face like an angel, 
 and a shrill, insistant voice, who could not be made 
 to understand that no one wanted oranges. Sorry 
 enough is the traveller, on his arrival at the summit, 
 heated with the climb and half suffocated with lava- 
 dust, if he has persisted in his refusal to buy. He 
 has none of these golden, globular wine-skins, only 
 waiting for his pumice-sharpened teeth to open them, 
 so that they may pour their delicious natural wine 
 down his choking throat. 
 
 " Many a little waif in Naples looks up to the 
 orange-trees as his only parents. Very generous, 
 
 streets in great golden 
 heaps. Half-naked boys 
 and girls make their liv- 
 
 £ ing by selling them, and 
 eat them in their season 
 as the cheapest food. 
 Nearly every traveller 
 who makes the ascent of 
 Mount Vesuvius remem- 
 bers that he was followed 
 
NEAPOLITAN ORANGES. 
 
 167 
 
 indulgent fathers and mothers they make. Al- 
 though never punishing their human children for 
 naughtiness, they have plenty of nice, elastic shoots 
 that make excellent switches. Like generous fathers, 
 they furnish their sons with capital upon which to 
 begin business; and, like fond, proud mothers, they 
 provide a bridal-wreath of snowy orange-blossoms for 
 each of their daughters. Very lovely indeed must the 
 country around Vesuvius have been before the erup- 
 tion. Pliny, the celebrated historian, used to come 
 here often. It may be that he owned one of the 
 beautiful villas on the side of the old crater, — per- 
 haps one called the Dovecote, from the number of 
 these birds kept by its owner. If so, Caius Plinius, 
 his young nephew, must have had some very agree- 
 able neighbors in the little people of the next villa ; 
 for there lived a daughter of the Emperor Vespasian 
 with her little girl, pretty Domitilla. In the same 
 home was a young lad, also related to the imperial 
 family, an orphan named Clemens, or Clement, — a 
 thoughtful, quiet boy, loving and gentle, but brave 
 and fearless, too. . We will fancy that Caius Plinius 
 did live at the Dovecote, and knew the royal children, 
 which is very possible, for his uncle, Pliny the elder, 
 
1 68 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 was a great friend of the Emperor Vespasian. How 
 much they must have enjoyed strolling together 
 through the orange-groves of Campagna Felix ! They 
 
 fed the doves, and watched 
 them as they plumed their 
 feathers on the edge of the basin 
 in which the fountain leaped and 
 splashed, or admired them drift- 
 ing down from the capitals of 
 the columns that lined the court 
 to perch upon Domitilla's wrist 
 and shoulders. Perhaps some 
 of them were trained to act as 
 carrier-pigeons between the two 
 
 villas ; and the poems and sonnets of Caius Plinius 
 must have pleased the vanity of little Domitilla better 
 
NEAPOLITAN ORANGES. 
 
 1 69 
 
 than they did her more serious cousin. It is possible 
 that frequently they acted together in little dramas 
 and tableaux ; for the Romans were very fond of 
 such representations, and Caius Plinius wrote a Greek 
 tragedy at the age of fourteen. In those days study 
 was considered good for children. Fond mammas 
 were not afraid that it would injure their darlings' 
 brains to know their letters before they were seven 
 years old. With Domitilla as little schoolma'am, how 
 the two boys must have tried to rival each other in 
 their rhetoric and their Homer ! Neither of them 
 could have spoken in after-life to more interested 
 audiences than when they recited their poems, while 
 Domitilla sat with her small head poised critically a 
 little to one side. ' You have not missed a word in 
 the whole poem,' she said one day to Caius Plinius, 
 when he had finished his declamation ; ' and Clement 
 changed whole lines, but the ones he put in were a 
 great deal better than these.' From which we may 
 gather that, while Pliny was the closer student, Clem- 
 ent proved the most original. I have not time to tell 
 you how houses were built and furnished in those 
 days. Words do not convey such information so 
 clearly as pictures. If you love art, you will learn 
 
170 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 from paintings what beautiful surroundings these 
 children had. The next time you turn over photo- 
 graphs or engravings from the paintings of Coomans 
 or Alma Tadema, imagine that you are looking at 
 Domitilla, or at some of her friends. Domitilla's 
 
 nurse, Judith, was a Jewess. 
 She was a slave that Domi- 
 tilla's uncle, the great gen- 
 eral, Titus, had sent home 
 with her family from Judea, 
 where he was carrying on 
 the siege of Jerusalem. 
 Judith's family were em- 
 ployed at Titus's 
 own villa, situated 
 in a plantation of 
 
 orange-trees on one of the hills to the east of Vesu- 
 vius. Judith was a Christian, and she interested the 
 children not only in the Hebrew legends of the Old 
 Testament, but also in Christ and his blessed mission. 
 
NEAPOLITAN ORANGES. 
 
 171 
 
 What she said must have seemed fresher and more 
 real" to the children than your Sunday-school lessons 
 do nowadays, for Judith's grandfather had often seen 
 Christ and was present at his dreadful murder. Clem- 
 ent listened silently, with his eloquent lips eagerly 
 parted ; but Domitilla would weep, or clap her hands, 
 exclaiming that he was more beautiful than Antinous 
 or Apollo, and that when she was a woman she would 
 have a statue made of him, and burn incense and 
 hang garlands before it. 1 My Uncle Titus will build 
 me a temple for him,' she said, 
 4 for he likes the Jews, and would 
 not war against them if his father, 
 the emperor, had not placed him 
 in command of -the army.' Caius 
 Plinius knew nothing of this new 
 interest, for he had gone to Rome 
 to study law. Not long after his 
 departure something very won- 
 derful and terrible happened. A 
 great cloud rested over Vesuvius, 
 and one night a pillar of fire shot 
 up from the crater to meet it, spreading out toward 
 the top, and filling the cloud with myriads of sparks, 
 
172 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 which glowed like red and angry stars. This fearful 
 spectacle was accompanied by unearthly noises and a 
 rain of ashes. Judith was away visiting her relatives 
 at Titus's villa; the other servants, panic-stricken, fled 
 
 without attempting to pro- 
 vide for the safety of their 
 mistress. When Domitilla's 
 mother opened the outer 
 door she found it nearly 
 blocked with pieces of pum- 
 ice-stone and ashes. No one 
 responded to her shrieks. 
 As soon as the terrified lady understood that she, 
 Clement, and Domitilla had been abandoned and 
 were being buried alive, she fainted 'upon the thresh- 
 old. Clement turned deadly pale. Suddenly a loud 
 braying was heard in the court, and a dark object 
 advanced. ' It is Stella, our donkey,' cried Domi- 
 tilla ; ' he wants to die with us.' ' But we will not 
 die ! ' exclaimed Clement. He helped Domitilla to 
 mount, and placed his aunt in front of her, charging 
 the child to cling firmly while he should lead the ani- 
 mal. Where ought they to go ? Domitilla was in 
 favor of Pompeii. ' It must be quite safe in the city,' 
 
NEAPOLITAN ORANGES. 
 
 173 
 
 she said, ' there are so many people there.' But 
 Clement hesitated. An awful light from the burn- 
 ing mountain illumined the sky ; they could see quite 
 plainly, though it was midnight. Over their heads 
 flocks of birds were continually passing with a whirr- 
 ing noise. ' They are Pliny's doves ! ' said Clement ; 
 ' the birds are wiser than we : they seek some place 
 of safety, and we will follow them.' Straight through 
 the air shot the doves ; as rapidly as possible the little 
 fugitives followed them on, on towards the orange- 
 groves of Titus. Caius Plinius himself was not very 
 far away. He had come in the fleet commanded by 
 his uncle to Misenum, on the seacoast. Pliny ex- 
 pressed his intention of making a nearer observation 
 of the curious phenomenon, and gave Caius permis- 
 sion to accompany him. The boy, having no concep- 
 tion of its awful importance, replied that he would 
 rather not waste his time in sight-seeing, as he was 
 very much interested in his studies. Pliny the elder 
 perished from his scientific curiosity and his philan- 
 thropic effort to save those dwelling near the volcano. 
 While he was making a vain effort to reach them, his 
 doves darted on, leading the children out of harm's 
 way. The orange-trees hung out their flame-reflect- 
 
174 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 ing globes like signal-lanterns, and welcomed the 
 weary doves to rest upon their branches, safe at last. 
 Judith, faithful nurse, folded the children in her lov- 
 ing arms. Like Lot and his daughters from the hills 
 of Zoar, they saw the fiery shower fall upon the 
 Cities of the Plain, but they were safe." 
 
 " O, I am so glad ! " exclaimed Flossy with a lit- 
 tle gasp ; " I was afraid it might be another Babes 
 in the Wood story, and that the mosaic of Pliny's 
 doves would be found in the villa hundreds of years 
 later, — a sort of tombstone for them." 
 
 " Domitilla lived to be a very old woman," re- 
 plied Tint ; " and the only inscription above her 
 tomb was a dove. It happened in this way: she 
 was one of the early martyrs, and died in the cata- 
 combs. The dove was the symbol of the Holy 
 Spirit, — an emblem common in that burying-place 
 of the first Roman Christians. These children, like 
 the Babes in the Wood, had a cruel uncle, whose 
 name was Domitian ; he became emperor after the 
 death of the humane Titus. They lived to grow 
 up and were married. Clement, for a time, was 
 successful in his open advocacy of Christianity, be- 
 coming the third Bishop of Rome ; but when Domi- 
 
NEAPOLITAN ORANGES. 
 
 175 
 
 tian came to the throne he caused Clement to be 
 slain, and banished Domitilla. His real reason for 
 this cruelty was that they belonged to the royal 
 family, and might seek his death; the charge pre- 
 ferred was that of 
 ' Atheism and Jewish 
 manners.' Caius Plin- 
 ius became a provincial 
 governor. It was part 
 of his official duty to 
 persecute the Christians. 
 He was so lax in the 
 performance of this duty 
 that, while he had the 
 reputation among the 
 Christians of being ' as 
 wise as a serpent,' they 
 acknowledged his obe- 
 dience to our Lord's 
 commandment in that 
 he was also 'as harm- 
 less as a dove.' If you 
 should go to-day and search for the site of the 
 Dovecote and of the other villa, where the chil- 
 
176 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 dren played together, I doubt if you could find 
 any trace of them. But Vesuvius is still there, 
 in spite of Hilary O'Hollogan's opinion (expressed 
 in her quaint brogue, which for once approached 
 correct terms), that they 'ought to put the crater 
 out' Mr. Howells describes the volcano of to-day 
 as though it were an Indian chief, — 'his brown 
 mantle of ashes drawn close about his throat, re- 
 clining on the plain, and smoking a bland and 
 thoughtful morning pipe, of which the silver fumes 
 curl lightly upward in the sunrise.' " 
 
YELLOW OCHRE. 
 
YELLOW OCHRE. 
 
 GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 ELLOW typifies the goodness 
 of God, and fruitfulness," said 
 Flossy, looking up from a book 
 of symbols; "but what does 
 Ochre mean?" Tint had just 
 told her the name of the next 
 freckle upon his cheek. 
 
 " Earth," replied Tint ; " and 
 Yellow Ochre is yellow earth." 
 
 " But I thought earth was 
 dirt," said Flossy, in a puzzled 
 way ; " and dirt is mud-color, or 
 dust-color, and who ever heard 
 of yellow mud, or yellow — but 
 yes, why, of course ! I did n't 
 think of gold-dust. Can they paint with gold, Tint?" 
 Tint pointed by way of answer to two small paint- 
 
i8o 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 ings in fanciful gilt-frames, neither square nor round 
 
 nor oval, but what 
 Flossy would have 
 called "church- 
 shaped," narrow-point- 
 ed arches, tipped with 
 a number of little 
 spires and pinnacles. 
 The pictures them- 
 selves were no less re- 
 markable. One repre- 
 sented a very lovely 
 angel playing, not up- 
 on a harp but upon a 
 fiddle, — antique in 
 shape, but a real vio- 
 lin, better fitted, one 
 would think, for the 
 dancing-school than 
 for heaven. The other 
 picture was an angel, 
 too, with a beautiful 
 face, waving yellow 
 hair, and a flowing robe. Contrary to Flossy's ideas 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 l8l 
 
 of fashionable styles among angels, this garment was 
 not white, but brilliant red; the angels wings, 
 too, were different from those in grandma's Illus- 
 trated Family Bible ; nor did they resemble any 
 of the pictures in Sunday-school books. They were 
 not soft and downy, like the tissue-paper ones which 
 she had herself worn when representing an angel, 
 in the Pilgrim's Progress tableaux. These were daz- 
 zling in color, and seemed to be composed of pea- 
 cock's feathers ! The angel was blowing a twisted 
 trumpet, very much like Mr. Puffindorf's, who played 
 in an orchestra at some theatre, and boarded in 
 one of those poor-looking houses that came square 
 up against their alley. Flossy had often watched 
 him from the upper back entry window, as he held 
 what he thought was a strictly private rehearsal of 
 his evening music. His instrument seemed to be 
 jointed, and it lengthened or shut up like a tele- 
 scope, as he moved his hand back and forward. 
 Sometimes his friend, Mr. Scrapenberg, practised 
 with him upon a great violoncello which resembled 
 a long-necked ostrich. When Mr. Scrapenberg 
 played he seemed to be in deadly combat with this 
 ostrich, and only succeeded in throttling it during 
 
182 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 the final movement. That is neither here nor there, 
 its only bearing on the present case being that this 
 recollection made Flossy wonder whether the angel 
 could lengthen and shut up his trumpet at will. 
 The background of the picture seemed to be of 
 beaten gold. The " church-shaped " frame had two 
 doors, which were open now, but might be closed 
 and locked, thus concealing the picture, and show- 
 ing that it was considered very precious. 
 
 " There does seem 
 to be gold enough 
 in that picture," said 
 Flossy, reverting to 
 the question which 
 she had asked. 
 
 " The early Floren- 
 tine painters always 
 depicted in gold the 
 glories about their 
 saints and angels, and 
 sometimes the entire 
 background of their 
 religious pictures was of the same color,", explained 
 Tint. " That is a copy of a painting by Fra An- 
 gelico; it is called the Red Trumpet." 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 183 
 
 "Who was Fra Angelico?" asked Flossy. 
 
 " He was a holy monk who was born at Fiesole, 
 and belonged to the convent of St. Mark in Flor- 
 ence ; there he spent his life, painting his visions, 
 which were always very sweet and lovely. He filled 
 the missals and choral-books of the convent with 
 exquisite illuminations. He covered the reliquaries 
 of the sacristy, the panels of the vestry, every 
 room, and space wherever a cupboard showed its 
 wooden door, with glorified saints bearing palm- 
 branches, arrayed in tints at the same time delicate 
 and vivid. These pictured saints have been cut 
 from the rude pieces of furniture bearing them, and 
 made altar-pieces in cathedrals, or choicest panel- 
 pictures in celebrated galleries. Fra Angelico lined 
 the convent corridors with fresco pictures of angels in 
 procession, which, says one critic, 'hover through the 
 air as if they were all one long outstretched cloud, 
 the very sight of which fills us with longing.' The 
 walls of the monastery chapels, of the passages, and 
 even of the low cells are covered with his paint- 
 ings, which are scarcely to be numbered. There 
 was nothing gloomy or sad about his religion. In 
 one of his pictures the angels are engaged in a 
 
184 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 heavenly concert, playing not only on harps and 
 trumpets, but also on guitars, tambourines, violins, 
 and bass-viols. Wondrously has he portrayed the 
 divine rapture of angels by faces which shine with 
 immortal joy, purity, and love. He has taken the 
 highest seat among the artists of all time. Yet 
 we are told that this obscure monk never labored 
 for ambition ; only when called to Rome by the 
 command of the Pope did he leave his convent. 
 While painting there in the Vatican, a position of 
 great dignity and importance was assigned him in 
 the church, which he declined from sheer humility. 
 Because he was so holy in his life, perhaps, too, 
 from the serene delight of the faces painted after 
 his pure ideals, he received the name of II Beato, 
 or the Blessed. He did not paint for money. When 
 gold was given him he employed it in the glories 
 about the heads of his pictured saints, and in the 
 gorgeous backgrounds, which may have stood for 
 the gates and streets of the golden city. He would 
 have been surprised, and perhaps not very much 
 pleased, had he been told that ' while seeking only 
 the glory of God, he was earning an immortal glory 
 among men.' " 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 185 
 
 Flossy sighed. " I wish I could do something 
 grand, or heroic, or beautiful, — or something ! " 
 
 Tint smiled, and nodded encouragingly, and Flossy 
 went on. " Something, I mean, which would make 
 me famous forever." Tint threw down his hands 
 with such a vigorous gesture of despair that the 
 two jointed rulers detached themselves from his 
 color-bag body, and fell to the floor with a bang, 
 while Caricature stood on her head and laughed. 
 
 " You are just like little Tommy Thompson," 
 said she. 
 
 " Who was Tommy Thompson ? " asked Flossy, 
 growing angry, she hardly knew why. 
 
 " He was a young gold miner at Shoreditch, Cali- 
 fornia," replied Carrie. "That is,Jiis father had been a 
 gold miner, and was one of five who owned the Shore- 
 ditch Gulches. This mine 
 gave hope at first of mak- 
 ing them all rich, but it 
 ignominiously failed them 
 in less than six months. Mr. Thompson was so 
 much disappointed that he immediately shot him- 
 self, never thinking what would become of six 
 children should his wife seek the same solution of 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 the difficulty. But Mrs. Thompson bore up under 
 her troubles like a man — I beg pardon — like a 
 woman, and had no notion of giving up. During 
 the hopeful days of gulch-life she had kept boarders 
 in the only frame building belonging to the settle- 
 ment. One long unplastered upper room consti- 
 tuted the chambers. Travellers were accommodated 
 with half a bed, and one twenty-fourth share of the 
 
 tin wash-basin, at first-class Astor House or St. 
 Nicholas prices. Mrs. Thompson was not left alto- 
 gether penniless ; she had put by a very little store 
 of money, of the existence of which she had, for 
 prudential reasons, never informed her husband. 
 Remaining longer in a mansion rented at thirty 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 I8 7 
 
 dollars a week, when the boarding-public had all 
 'folded their tents like the Arabs, and as silently 
 stolen away,' was not to be thought of. One of 
 the partners, having nothing else wherewith to pay 
 his board-bill, gave Mrs. Thompson his share in the 
 mine, so that she now owned two fifths of the whole. 
 The bar-keeper, who was another shareholder, and 
 looked upon as the wealthiest man in the region, 
 was shot and robbed by some disappointed adven- 
 turers. His diamond studs were cut from his shirt- 
 bosom and taken with all his other valuables ; but 
 the murderers had not thought it worth while to 
 carry away his shares in the Shoreditch Gulches. 
 No relatives could be found to take his claim, so 
 the company organized on a new basis. Mrs. 
 Thompson found herself rightful possessor of one 
 half the stock; the other two partners separated, 
 one to try his fortune as a drover in Southern 
 California, and the other to return to a dry-goods 
 clerkship in the East. The unsuccessful miner who 
 adopted the profession of drover invited Tommy 
 Thompson to go with him and share the trials and 
 profits of an expedition. This offer was contemptu- 
 ously rejected by Tommy, who had set his heart 
 
i88 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 upon a more ambitious career: he had determined 
 to be an artist ! His attention had been turned to 
 Art in his native village, before coming to Califor- 
 nia, by the daring flights of an imaginative sign- 
 painter. 
 
 " Tommy admired the man as well as his profes- 
 sion, and spent many hours among his paint-kegs, 
 watching the elaborate decoration which he lavished 
 on Farmer Hayfork's wagon, and his ornamentation 
 of Miss Truepenny's parlor-chairs. They had be- 
 longed to her grandmother, and were made of wood 
 strong enough to last another hundred years, but 
 the paint was considerably worn. These chairs 
 were the sign-painter's chef-d'oeuvre. On the back 
 of each was a different flower or bird ; Tommy 
 thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. 
 When the family went to California the painter 
 gave Tommy a small collection of paints and brushes, 
 neatly put up in an oyster-can, and with them a 
 few rules for landscape and flower-painting. These 
 directions, if carried out faithfully, might enable him 
 some day to achieve such masterpieces as usually 
 decorate omnibuses. Once at Shoreditch, Tommy 
 had met a real artist, very different from the sign- 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 painter. He carried his canvases and color-box 
 strapped upon his back, together with a quantity 
 of mysterious umbrellas and canes. The inhabi- 
 tants of Shoreditch at first took him for a Jew ped- 
 ler; next they were sure he was an umbrella- 
 mender. When he showed them his canvases, 
 
 miration. He came across Tommy Thompson, Giotto- 
 like, herding some very thin, slab-sided cows. The 
 stranger shook his cane out into a camp-stool, seated 
 
190 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 himself, and began to sketch. Tommy drew near, 
 and criticised the picture upon which he was en- 
 gaged. The gentleman listened good-humoredly, and 
 at last asked, ' Would you like to be an artist 
 some day ? ' 
 
 " ' I am one,' replied Tommy, with sublime impu- 
 dence. 
 
 " The artist smiled. 1 Will you show me some of 
 your pictures ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes,' replied Tommy, eagerly, ' if you '11 mind 
 them cows while I 'm gone. You 'd better keep 
 an eye on Surveyor, though, she 's a master hand 
 at straying away, and perhaps you '11 have to pack 
 up them traps of yours, for Grumpus, that little red 
 heifer there, is mighty suspicious of strangers ; reckon 
 she might think you was a butcher in disguise.' 
 Tommy was back in a few minutes, bearing what 
 he supposed to be a very remarkable piece of 
 work. Like Raphael's Madonna Delia Seggiola, it 
 was executed upon a barrel-head, but unlike the Ma- 
 donna, it was an outrageous daub. The artist smiled 
 when he saw it. ' You need study, my boy,' he said 
 kindly. ' Art is long, and one can't be an artist all 
 at once. If you decide to apply yourself seriously to 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 I 9 I 
 
 its study, and ever come East, be sure to call on me, 
 and I will help you all I can. Here is my card.' 
 
 "The Thompsons left Shoreditch, and Mrs. Thomp- 
 son, with her faithful Chinese servant, Tang Gee, 
 established herself at Bonanza City. There she ap- 
 peared in the double capacity of laun- 
 dress and frier of doughnuts; the 
 latter were carried to the railroad-sta- 
 tion by Bobby and Sally, where they 
 found a ready sale. Tang Gee re- 
 fused to leave his mistress ; a decision 
 not altogether disinterested, for he 
 had tried without success to obtain 
 work in every quarter. Tommy, like 
 a second prodigal son, asked for his 
 portion of the family estate, and an- 
 nounced his intention to go East, find 
 the friendly artist, and start upon his 
 chosen career. 
 
 " ' Gold ! ' he exclaimed, with sublime scorn ; ' I 
 despise it; I don't care if the Shoreditch Gulches 
 did fail ; I am glad of it ! Let me go, mother ; I 
 seek something better than gold. Glory calls me.' 
 
 " This speech had an immense effect on the 
 
192 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 younger Thompsons, who maintained, whenever they 
 were asked as to the whereabouts of their brother, 
 that he had gone to Glory. Mrs. Thompson be- 
 lieved in her son, and, instead of giving him only 
 his share, consigned to him half her ready money; 
 after the purchase of a ticket to New York the 
 young man had just fifteen dollars. The artist, 
 when he heard Tommy's story, out of sheer pity 
 for the boy, feeling that he was partly to blame for 
 this enterprise, took him into his 
 home, and in return for the care 
 of his studio made him a member 
 of a class in drawing, of which he 
 was the teacher. Tommy worked 
 faithfully, but he made slow prog- 
 ress. None of his pictures gave 
 him the same satisfaction that his 
 barrel-head masterpiece had ; little 
 by little it was borne in upon his 
 dull mind that he had mistaken 
 his vocation, and really possessed 
 no artistic talent. Still he strug- 
 gled doggedly on with difficulties concerning which 
 the sign-painter had never warned him. For three 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 193 
 
 years he occupied the same place, alternately smear- 
 ing a wretched copy of a plaster-cast with crayon- 
 dust, and then rubbing it in a frantic energy of 
 despair over his own face. 
 
 " At length his artist friend felt it a duty to tell 
 him in all kindness that he did not think he would 
 ever succeed. The information had a very different 
 effect from the one anticipated; a gleam of delight 
 lit up the boy's face. 1 1 am so glad ! ' he exclaimed ; 
 ' I have been thinking so, myself, for a long time, 
 but I was afraid I was only tired of the work, and 
 that it was in me if I only tried hard enough. 
 Now I can go back and be a miner again ; I shall 
 be satisfied, too, for I shan't be thinking all the 
 time that I was made for something better.' 
 
 " ' My dear boy,' said his friend, 4 1 admire your 
 pluck. You shall not go home empty-handed, or 
 rather empty-headed. You came here under the 
 influence of a mistake, caused partly by my influ- 
 ence ; I ought to have discouraged you at Shore- 
 ditch. I will help you to something useful out 
 there. Which would you rather be, an assayer of 
 metals or a surveyor?' Tommy chose the former 
 occupation, was helped by his friend to a practical 
 
194 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 course in chemistry, and, returning to California, ob- 
 tained lucrative employment in a mining region. 
 Very little of his salary, however, was spent upon 
 himself ; he saw now the selfishness which had in- 
 duced him to desert his family during their long 
 struggle with poverty, and he determined, if possi- 
 ble, to make amends. He sent his sisters to school 
 in the East, and supported his mother, keeping her 
 always near him with a jealous care, as though he 
 had spared her too long. The gold which he once 
 spurned so haughtily was welcomed thankfully, now 
 he saw that rightly used it was a great means of 
 doing good. He worked for it with such unremit- 
 ting industry that his mother feared, with good rea- 
 son, for his health. It broke down at last ; even an 
 iron constitution could not have sustained such a 
 continued strain. He succumbed to a severe and 
 dangerous illness. Tommy did not die, but it was 
 evident that he could never work again as he had. 
 When this was told him, bitter tears welled up into 
 his eyes. 'I would rather have died,' he said; 'we 
 were living so comfortably, and now to give, up 
 everything and be a burden to you, and to have 
 you go back to the old hard life again, it is too 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 195 
 
 much.' During his convalescence, which could hardly 
 be distinguished from a decline, it was so very slow, 
 and he so weak and spent, his eye fell upon a dried- 
 up rose-bush which stood in a flower-pot in the 
 window. ' Why do you keep that withered thing ? ' 
 he asked. ' Do you not see that it is quite dead, 
 and as useless as I am ? ' 
 
 " ' I know it,' replied his mother ; 4 but Sally 
 brought it from Shoreditch. Somehow with all our 
 care the flower would not live, but Sally kept it 
 because it came from home ; when she went to 
 boarding-school I kept it because she set such a 
 store by it. But perhaps it has stayed there long 
 enough, and I will throw it away if it vexes you.' 
 
 " ' Let me see it first,' said Tommy. ' I will look 
 at the root, and see if there is any sign of life.' 
 The bush let go its hold on the earth without re- 
 sistance. Tommy was handing the flower-pot back 
 to his mother when something in the appearance 
 of the dust struck him; he uttered an exclamation 
 of surprise, then asked for a test-tube and a few 
 bottles from his shelf of chemicals. ' Where did 
 this earth come from ? ' he asked. 
 
 " ' O, I don't know ; from the garden, I suppose,' 
 
196 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 replied his mother, carelessly ; then as she remem- 
 bered the events of the past more clearly, ' but I 
 do know. I remember that Sallie ran down to the 
 creek back of our house, and filled the flower-pot 
 with mud. She thought the soil 
 was richer there.' 
 
 '"Rich! I should think so,' al- 
 most shrieked Tommy. ' No won- 
 der the poor rose died; mother, it 
 is gold-dust ! ' 
 
 " Mother and son revisited their 
 old home together. By the aid of 
 such knowledge of geology and 
 chemistry as he had acquired in 
 the East, the mischievous vein of 
 gold, which had played at hide-and- 
 seek with the miners, was tracked 
 and found. They were half owners 
 in an exceptionally rich mine. Tommy did not live 
 long to enjoy it, but he saw some of its effects ; Bob- 
 by, after a course at Yale and in Geneva, became 
 an eloquent and devoted minister; Sally, at Paris, 
 succeeded in the path where Tommy had failed, 
 and won the reputation of a rising and talented 
 
GOLD AND GLORY. 
 
 197 
 
 artist; Molly, who had always something of the 
 goody-goody about her, endowed an orphan asylum, 
 and entered it as matron; wild little Maggie, who 
 was just the reverse of Molly in everything, became, 
 as the wife of a Western senator, a leader in Wash- 
 ington society, leading in the right direction, too, 
 as a general thing; little Bill studied in Germany, 
 evincing marked talent as a musician, 
 a taste which had at first shown itself 
 in his determination to run away with 
 a hand-organ man ; Mrs. Thompson 
 wore nice lace caps, al- 
 ways looking perfectly la- 
 
 dy-like and happy; Tang 
 
 Gee became Tommy's body-servant, silent but de- 
 voted, driving his master about the country every 
 day in a low phaeton. It was one of Tommy's lit- 
 tle jokes to pretend to be a doctor, and to insist 
 
198 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 on prescribing for all the poor people in a radius 
 of ten miles about Shoreditch. No matter what the 
 disease, the prescription was always the same ; a 
 homoeopathic vial filled with gold-dust was the medi- 
 cine, always delivered by himself. The people felt 
 sure that he was a minister, though of what de- 
 nomination remained undecided. They treated with 
 sublime scorn the suggestion of one illiterate indi- 
 vidual who thought that he might be only an ex- 
 hauster, 
 
 " At length there came a day when Tang Gee's 
 devotion was no longer needed. The poor China- 
 man was asked why his master came no more ; he 
 shook his head sadly, and replied, ' Too muchee 
 religion no good for Melican man, he all the same 
 gone to Glory ! ' And so he had. 
 
 " He found, with Fra Angelico, the answer to the 
 question asked by many an aspirant for fame, — 
 
 1 What shall I do to be forever known ? 
 Thy duty ever. 
 
 This did full many who yet sleep unknown. 
 O, never, never ! 
 
 Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown, 
 Whom thou know'st not? 
 
 By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, 
 Divine their lot.' " 
 
IAW SIENNA 
 
RAW SIENNA. 
 
 FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 
 
 IT seemed funny 
 enough," said 
 Flossy, in reply 
 to a remark with 
 which Tint began 
 their conversation, "to think 
 that they painted with stones 
 and gold ; but plastering, — 
 the idea of painting with 
 that is too absurd." 
 
 "You must have forgot- 
 ten, I think, our talk on 
 Venetian Red and how frescos are painted," said 
 Tint ; " it was Michael Angelos favorite method. 
 All frescos, however, are not painted in his w T ay, — 
 putting the colors upon the wet plaster ; some frescos 
 are merely painted upon the smooth surface of a dry 
 
202 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 wall or ceiling. This latter method Michael Angelo 
 regarded with scorn, saying that it and oil-painting 
 were fit only for women. Michael Angelo may well 
 enough be called the greatest of painters, in contrast 
 with Raphael, who is the tenderest and most charm- 
 ing. He delighted in colossal subjects, treated in a 
 grand, gigantic way. He could bear nothing little or 
 mean in either art or character. No canvas was large 
 enough for his mighty conceptions ; so they were 
 spread over the walls of great halls, and seemed 
 crowded in the vastest of domes. Michael Angelo is 
 the king of fresco-painting, though nearly all of the 
 early Italian painters were familiar with this kind of 
 work, and have left beautiful examples of it. Fra 
 Angelico, as I have told you, bequeathed some, filled 
 with heavenly beauty. Raphael decorated the Sistine 
 Chapel in the same way. The principal paintings of 
 the Venetian school, and Leonardo da Vinci's most 
 celebrated picture, The Last Supper, are frescos. 
 There are some beautiful fresco-paintings of children, 
 in Parma, by Correggio. These pictures could not 
 be removed from the houses where they were placed ; 
 they suffered in consequence by whatever calamities 
 of fire or dilapidation occurred to the houses, and 
 
IT 
 
 0 
 
 FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 203 
 
 most cruelly of all in the repairs that time brought 
 about. Giotto, one of the earliest of the Italian 
 painters, was peculiarly unfortunate in having many 
 of his beautiful frescos repainted by the order of stu- 
 pid priests. They thought that the time-darkened 
 paintings made the churches look shabby, and pre- 
 ferred the cheap brightness of gaudy, tasteless deco- 
 rations to the mellow gloom of the old masterpieces. 
 
 " The story I am to tell you to-day is about one of 
 these frescos. It might have happened in Florence 
 or Naples, for Giotto painted in these and other Ital- 
 ian cities ; but it sometimes spoils a story to tell ex- 
 actly where it took place. Suppose I begin in this 
 way: Once upon a time there lived in the city of 
 Sienna a boy named Giacomo (Italian for Jack). 
 Jack was the son of an Italian maker of cheeses. 
 The cheese-factory had formerly been the refectory of 
 a monastery, for a long time given up to worldly uses 
 and almost entirely demolished. Under the white- 
 wash that covered the walls of the refectory, which 
 was now a cheese-factory, which belonged to the 
 father who had a boy whose name was Giacomo, 
 which is Italian for Jack (all of which has a remote 
 resemblance to the ancient legend of ' The House that 
 
204 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Jack Built'), there was hidden away, not a sack of 
 malt, but a beautiful fresco painted by Giotto. When 
 I say that all this happened in the town of Sienna, 
 you must simply understand that it might have hap- 
 pened there. I am not sure but that it took place in 
 Florence or Naples instead. I am not sure that it 
 really ever happened in any city. I choose the name 
 Sienna simply because it happens to be tucked on to 
 
 the next frec- 
 
 ~ ~ ~ scrape as the 
 
 poet Rogers did. You know he said in his poem of 
 'Ginevra,' — 
 
 m 
 
 " ' If ever you should come to Modena, 
 
 Stop at a palace near the Reggio gate, 
 Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini. 
 Enter the house, — forget it not, I pray, — 
 And look awhile upon a picture there, 
 Done by Zampieri.' 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BA NDITS. % 205 
 
 " Now the facts are : firstly, the portrait of Ginevra, 
 by Zampieri (whose other name was Domenichino), 
 does not hang in any palace in Modena ; secondly, 
 Zampieri never painted any portrait of Ginevra ; and, 
 thirdly, grave doubts are entertained by antiquarians 
 as to whether any such lady as Ginevra ever lived. 
 Now the ' secondly ' and ' thirdly ' are of no particular 
 importance, so far as concerns the story, if only Mr. 
 Rogers had not said that the portrait was in Modena, 
 or if he had said that it might have been in Modena, 
 or perhaps it was Parma, or possibly Ferrara, or that 
 there were authorities who claimed a probability of its 
 being at Bologna, and had then put a little star at 
 the end of the statement, referring to a foot-note, in 
 which he might have said : ' This picture was carried 
 out of Italy by King Something-or-other, after the 
 Battle of What's-his-name.' If he had done this, why 
 then all the English-speaking and English-reading 
 tourists who visit Modena would not be rushing 
 about, inquiring frantically of every valet-de-place and 
 guide for the palace near the Reggio gate containing 
 the celebrated portrait of Ginevra, by Domenichino. 
 Now, Flossy Tangleskein and Ruby Rose, I will go 
 back to my story of Giacomo and the fresco, if you 
 
206 * 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 will promise that when you go to Sienna you will not 
 hunt after the old refectory. Not that the place is 
 destitute of interesting subjects for art-stories. Here 
 Vanni lived, who painted the funny little Christ-child, 
 swaddled like an Indian papoose, with the coral brace- 
 let on his chubby arm ; and Simone Martini, a cele- 
 brated artist, who painted a portrait of Laura Petrarch, 
 — I mean of the Laura who, if she had been Mrs. 
 Petrarch, would never have had those beautiful son- 
 nets written about her ; on the contrary — " 
 
 "See here," interrupted Ruby Rose; "I thought 
 you began to tell us a story about Jack Somebody, 
 but you get further and further away from it. If you 
 don't come to time, Flossy and I will go away and 
 have a game of Peg-in-the-ring. She can play top 
 first-rate, New York fashion ; but she is n't quite up 
 to the Boston jerk yet, and I 've promised to teach 
 her." 
 
 Tint did not wish to lose his little audience, so" he 
 began in a more promising way: — 
 
 " Giacomo was not a bad boy. Italian boys, by 
 nature, are more gentle and tractable than the scuf- 
 fling, noisy, impudent Northern boys. They are nat- 
 urally little gentlemen, possessing grace of manner, 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 207 
 
 an unconscious politeness, and girlish gentleness. 
 These traits, taken in connection with the fact that 
 they are very beautiful, gives even to the ragged 
 street-boys an irresistible charm for the foreigner. 
 Giacomo was one of the handsomest boys in Sienna. 
 His hair was very curly and very black, and his large, 
 intense eyes glowed from a pale-olive oval face. He 
 was especially noted for assuming graceful attitudes, 
 generally leaning statuesquely against a pump in a 
 little court opposite the principal hotel. There he 
 would silently watch the travellers arriving and de- 
 parting. Not that he cared a snap of his small fin- 
 gers for the disagreeable people with the many boxes. 
 In this position, however, they could not help seeing 
 him, and were quite sure, the ladies especially, to go 
 into raptures over his beauty. Giacomo would listen 
 with demure pretence of not understanding praises 
 which were quite intelligible, and none the less gratify- 
 ing because uttered in a foreign tongue. Sometimes 
 the stranger's admiration was accompanied with small 
 gifts of copper coin or cakes, but Giacomo was more 
 vain than mercenary. He preferred the 1 0, how 
 sweet ! ' and ' Too lovely for anything ! ' of the young 
 ladies to dry gingerbread and paltry coppers. Vanity 
 
208 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 was one of Giacomo's most prominent characteristics ; 
 but there was one class of people from whom he never 
 wittingly levied the tribute of admiration. Whenever 
 Giacomo saw an artist alighting at the door of the 
 Hotel Macaroni, he deserted his post of observation 
 and ignominiously fled. For artists had a most objec- 
 tionable habit of asking him to come and pose for 
 them, which meant keeping the same attitude for a 
 half-day at a time, and being talked to, in language 
 which no gentleman can take from another, when, 
 
 leading motive in life, — 
 a desire to rival a little friend of his named Jacopo. 
 
 from weariness or mis- 
 chief, he changed his po- 
 sition. He had suffered 
 so much from artists that 
 he hated the whole frater- 
 nity, and determined to 
 repay the grudge which 
 he owed them at his first 
 opportunity. Beside his 
 resolution to revenge 
 himself on the artists, 
 Giacomo had another 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 209 
 
 He was nicknamed 1 the Braggart,' from an amiable 
 faculty of entertaining his playmates with fictions of 
 the most imaginative character. Jacopo had an uncle 
 who was a brigand ; and, according to the accounts by 
 his nephew, there was no crime, however black, which 
 this uncle had not perpetrated. Giacomo would listen 
 to wild tales of blood and horror till his little heart 
 almost stopped beating, and his kinky hair stiffened 
 out nearly straight. Had his mother found him then, 
 she might, with great exertion, have passed a comb 
 through it. While Jacopo exulted in these adven- 
 tures of his vagabond relative, Giacomo would reflect 
 with shame that he was the son of poor but honest 
 parents, — that all his uncles, while they were not 
 equally poor, were alike unmistakably and lamentably 
 virtuous. In desperate emulation, at one time, he told 
 a story of an English artist who visited his father's 
 factory, and was waylaid in a wareroom and squeezed 
 in a cheese-press until he had promised that a large 
 ransom should be paid for his release. But the story 
 was too improbable, and he had the mortification of 
 hearing it scoffed at by Jacopo as a base invention. 
 In reality, Jacopo's uncle was a farmer, with no more 
 than the average amount of Italian rascality of char- 
 
2IO 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 acter ; and it would have done Giacomo's heart good 
 if he could have known that the vaunted desperado 
 was only a fresco-brigand, after all." 
 
 " What do you mean by 1 a fresco-brigand ' ? " asked 
 Ruby Rose. 
 
 " Very much like the fresco-Christians we have in 
 this country," replied Tint. " I told you that many 
 of the Italian churches have their domes frescoed, so 
 
 that you seem to be 
 looking up through the 
 clouds into the quiet 
 blue of the sky. Angels 
 and saints are often rep- 
 resented drifting on 
 these billowy clouds, or 
 soaring upward, through 
 what seems to be an immensity of space, to the glo- 
 rious gates of heaven itself. The dome shuts down 
 over the church as solid and impenetrable as ever, 
 and the heavenly vision is nothing but colored plas- 
 ter." 
 
 "Yes, I know, I know!" exclaimed Flossy, eagerly; 
 "the wall back of the pulpit in our church is frescoed 
 to represent a long gallery, with a mosaic pavement 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 211 
 
 and many columns and arches, leading back to a beau- 
 tiful garden. I thought it was all real, until the day 
 of the Sunday-school concert. We went on the plat- 
 form to say our verses. I had made up my mind 
 that I would not return by the stairs, but just step 
 behind one of those columns and take a look at 
 the garden. When I tried it, I walked straight up 
 against the wall, and there was n't any gallery, or any 
 garden, or pavement, or anything." 
 
 " Now, have you never met any people," asked Tint, 
 " who were like that ? They gave you the impression 
 of being persons of lofty intellect or deep character, 
 but when you tried to sound them you found a blank 
 wall instead of the far-reaching vistas which you ex- 
 pected. Like the fresco back of the pulpit, they were 
 all sham. Our Saviour called hypocrites whited sep- 
 ulchres, — that is, walls covered with a sort of fresco ; 
 and the name, you see, was not very unlike the one I 
 have used of fresco-Christians. 
 
 " But to return to Giacomo, w T ho was not by any 
 means a hypocrite. Under Jacopo's influence he be- 
 came very much ashamed of the good qualities which 
 he really possessed, and tried to conceal them. He 
 resembled the wall in his father's cheese-factory, which 
 
212 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 had unsuspected worth concealed beneath its unpre- 
 possessing exterior. An opportunity presented itself 
 at last for revenging himself on the race of artists, 
 and for eclipsing Jacopo's uncle. A party of German 
 artists stopped at the hotel ; they saw Giacomo loung- 
 ing in the sun, listening with placid face but envious 
 heart to some exploits of Jacopo's uncle more than 
 usually ferocious. One of the gentlemen, struck by 
 the beautiful face, started, with sketch-box thrown has- 
 tily over his shoulder, in pursuit of Giacomo, who 
 
 disappeared down a tor- 
 tuous alley. The artist 
 spent the morning in 
 the factory, painting 
 Giacomo. While there, 
 he heard, from a dairy- 
 maid who brought milk 
 in cans borne by very 
 diminutive donkeys, of 
 a bit of scenery near 
 Sienna which he felt 
 sure he would like. He 
 determined to return on one of Vittoria's donkeys, 
 spend the night at the dairy-farm, make his sketch, 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 21 3 
 
 and return by the next evening. He wrote a note to 
 his friends informing them of his intention, and in- 
 trusted it to Giacomo. The rogue waited until the 
 artist was out of sight, and then, having received all 
 the money he expected, languidly tore the missive up. 
 The artist left the house by a different door from 
 that which he entered, — a door opening upon another 
 street. Jacopo was still waiting to see him emerge. 
 Here was Giacomo's coveted chance to impress his 
 friend with the fact that a tragedy had occurred. 
 
 " ' When is his eminence the artist coming out ? ' 
 asked Jacopo, as Giacomo came stealthily toward 
 him. 
 
 " ' Never ! ' whispered Giacomo, rolling his eyes 
 .mysteriously. 
 
 " ' What ! ' gasped Jacopo. 
 
 " ' Yes ! ' hissed Giacomo, giving three pantomimic 
 dagger-thrusts in the air; and, clasping his hands over 
 his companion's mouth with the warning, ' Hush ! ' he 
 was bounding away, but Jacopo held him. 
 
 " ' Wait ! ' he whispered ; ' was he very rich ? ' 
 
 '"A purse and a money-belt!' replied Giacomo, 
 placing his hands close together, and then extending 
 them to their utmost, indicating the length of the 
 articles in question. 
 
2 14 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " ' Where did you hide him ? ' asked Jacopo ; but in 
 his wonder he had loosened 'his grasp on Giacomo, 
 and the boy fled. Meantime the German painters at 
 the hotel were at a loss to account for the absence of 
 their friend. The night passed, and the morning 
 found them seriously alarmed. ' He followed a boy 
 who was playing in the square,' said one of them. 
 ' Ah, there he is now ! ' And the stranger, who had 
 seen Jacopo staring at them with a curiosity not un- 
 mixed with importance, shook the boy by the shoulder 
 and demanded, in bad Italian, where he had last seen 
 his friend. 'Ah, signor! I know nothing,' said the 
 boy ; ' but signor had best get the police, and inquire 
 at the cheese-factory on the Via Angelo.' The gen- 
 tlemen inquired and were leaving, quite satisfied with 
 the information received ; but the actions of little 
 Jacopo were so suspicious that the authorities were 
 called and a search instituted. ' He says that if you 
 seek, treasures will be discovered hidden in the wall,' 
 said one of the artists ; and workmen were summoned, 
 who began sounding and probing the plastering. One 
 of them, having scratched off a little whitewash, an- 
 nounced that he had come uppn a red stain, which 
 might be that of blood. Great excitement prevailed ; 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 215 
 
 but just as the discovery was made, the missing man 
 appeared, returned from his excursion, and was borne 
 off by his friends with much rejoicing. The work- 
 men, however, having once begun, could not be pre- 
 vailed upon, to desist before ascertaining the meaning 
 of the mysterious stain. More whitewash was re- 
 
 moved, and it became evident that there was a paint- 
 ing beneath. More skilled workmen were brought, 
 the whitewash entirely and carefully taken off, and 
 Giotto's fresco was revealed and appropriated by the 
 
216 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 city authorities. This would have been the end of 
 the affair, so far as Giacomo and his family were con- 
 cerned, had it not been for Jacopo. His reference to 
 a treasure hidden in the wall convinced the authorities 
 that Giacomo's father knew of this fresco, and in- 
 tended to communicate the secret to foreign art- 
 connoisseurs, and enrich himself by selling the build- 
 ing. The idea was preposterous, but sufficient to 
 cause the confiscation of the building, and to throw 
 the poor man into prison. On his discharge he found 
 that in one respect he was the gainer for the occur- 
 rence. Giacomo was transformed from a vain, lazy 
 little fellow, with very loose ideas on the subject of 
 morals, to a truthful, industrious boy, very anxious to 
 help his father, and very jealous of that valuable pos- 
 session, ' a good name.' He had learned from bitter 
 experience that it does not pay to pretend to be any 
 worse than one really is, — a piece of worldly wisdom 
 which most American boys understand without hav- 
 ing to pay for it by so trying an experience." 
 
 Ruby Rose thought of the time he had passed and 
 repassed Flossy's home, ostentatiously puffing a cigar 
 made of sweetfern and tissue-paper, hoping that she 
 would think it was a cigarette and admire his manli- 
 
FRESCO-CHRISTIANS AND FRESCO-BANDITS. 21 J 
 
 ness. He remembered also how Grandma Tangle- 
 skein had observed him, called him in, and lectured 
 him on the evils of tobacco, refusing to credit his 
 explanation of the innocent material of his cigar. 
 Still further he recalled how, through her, the opin- 
 ion had gradually crept into the minds of his Sunday- 
 school teacher and others whom he respected that he 
 
 was a depraved young smoker. Ruby Rose thought 
 of all this and was silent. 
 
 To Flossy also the story gave material for thought. 
 All her small affectations and aristocratic airs, which 
 had many times given her the appearance of being 
 sillier and vainer than she really was, seemed espe- 
 cially foolish now. Her father had watched her with 
 
218 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 an amused expression one evening, and had remarked 
 in her hearing, " I think our little girl must be de- 
 scended from the Kabeljaauschen of Holland." 
 
 " W ere they a noble family ? " asked Flossy. 
 
 " They were called the Codfish Aristocracy," replied 
 Mr. Tangleskein. 
 
BURNT SIENNA. 
 
 THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 HEN I travelled 
 in the Pyre- 
 nees," said Tint, 
 "I was very 
 much interested in a 
 little donkey whose ac- 
 quaintance I made while 
 on his back, with the 
 paints, folding-easel, 
 camp-stool, umbrella, and 
 the rest of Mr. Rose's 
 sketching apparatus. He 
 was a shaggy, wayward fellow. His extreme little- 
 ness gave one the mistaken idea that he was quite 
 young, whereas, I think I never knew a more ven- 
 erable donkey. I do not think Baalam, himself, on 
 
222 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 a similar occason, was more surprised than I when 
 I first heard this animal speak. I was lying on 
 the grass, where Mr. Rose had thrown me, while 
 he followed a goat-herd who urged him to behold 
 a wonderful view from the other side of the moun- 
 tain, near whose top he had taken his seat. He 
 did not see the goat-herd's confederate, another red- 
 capped boy, crouching behind a rock waiting for 
 Mr. Rose to be out of sight, when he proposed to 
 examine his sketch-box, and make off with what- 
 ever suited his fancy. I was just wondering whether 
 I would ever get back to America again, when I 
 heard a voice above me say : ' Now I am not so 
 foolish as to be deceived by that boy ; no, not if 
 I am a donkey.' 
 
 " 'It is a very good thing if one is a donkey to 
 know it,' I said. ' I 've known a great many don- 
 keys who supposed all their lives that they were 
 men.' My new friend did not reply; he was en- 
 gaged in active hostilities with the boy. Each 
 time that he attempted a stealthy approach the 
 donkey would wheel about, and with a few well- 
 directed kicks convince the intruder that it was 
 best not to begin his attack in that quarter. The 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 223 
 
 rascal gave it up entirely after a while, and went 
 away looking as shamefaced as any boy could who 
 knew that he had been beaten by a donkey. 
 
 " ' Now that is what I call being a patron of Art 
 to some purpose,' I said, admiringly. 
 
 " * Perhaps if you knew my history,' said the don- 
 key, ' you would find that I have done more for 
 Art than you think. My name is Roland; Roland 
 of Roncesvalles.' 
 
 " ' Stop ! ' said I ; * Roland was a man, the nephew 
 of Charlemagne, and was killed by the Moors when 
 passing with the rear-guard of his uncle's army 
 through a defile in the mountains not far from 
 here ; the Moors tore up great rocks and stumps 
 of trees, and rolled them down the mountain-side 
 upon them. I know all about it, for I know every- 
 thing that Art has had anything to do with ; there 
 is a picture in the British Museum, by the Spanish 
 Velasquez, of Roland lying dead in a valley.'" 
 
 " That must have been the same Roland," said 
 Flossy, " whose betrothed lived on the banks of 
 the Rhine. Hearing a false rumor that her lover 
 was killed in battle, she became a nun ; but just 
 as the vow was made, Roland returned. In his 
 
224 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 despair at never being able to see her again, he 
 built the castle of Drachenfels, and lived in it, 
 
 that he might 
 overlook the 
 co n v e n t 
 ~ where the 
 lady of his 
 love was a 
 prisoner. I 
 spoke a piece 
 about it at our school exhibition: — 
 
 ' She died ! He sought the battle plain, 
 Her image filled his dying brain, 
 
 When he fell and wished to fall. 
 And her name was in his latest sigh, 
 When Roland, the flower of chivalry, 
 
 Expired at Roncevall.' " 
 
 " That," replied Tint, " was the Roland I had in 
 mind, but the donkey insisted that there could be 
 more than one of the name. He claimed a family 
 resemblance in all the Rolands. 1 Charlemagne's 
 nephew,' said he, 'was a great donkey to come 
 straggling along so far behind the main body of 
 the army, when he knew that the country was full 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 225 
 
 of Moors; but the first Roland was obstinate, and 
 so am I. I have no doubt he looked like me, and 
 that the picture which Caricature is making of him, 
 with the very long ears, is a correct likeness. They 
 keep his breeches as a sacred relic at the convent 
 of Roncesvalles. I never saw them, so I cannot 
 tell whether Carrie's picture is correct in that par- 
 ticular or not. 
 
 " ' The convent of Roncesvalles is built high up 
 on one of the ranges of the Pyrenees. As you 
 cross the southern frontier of France and enter 
 Spain, the road winds up, up, so steep and so 
 narrow that it is impracticable for wheels, and curi- 
 ous tourists who go on pilgrimage that way must 
 be content to travel on mule-back. Old Mother 
 Bordagaray lived in a village through which tour- 
 ists usually passed on their way to the convent of 
 Roncesvalles. Mother Bordagaray was not a lady 
 of wealth, but she owned two remarkable things : 
 an old brass door-knocker, a little cherub whose 
 nose had been hopelessly driven into its face by 
 the descent of the heavy hammer upon it, and me. 
 The knocker was considered a great curiosity, and 
 brought her numerous visitors, some one of whom 
 
226 
 
 ALL AROUND A 'PALETTE. 
 
 I generally carried away. Mother Bprdagaray re- 
 ceived a nice little income by letting me to tour- 
 ists who wished to visit Roncesvalles. She gave 
 me the name of Roland, thinking it would interest 
 sentimental ladies and antiquarian gentlemen in me, 
 and so it did. I had no great love for these expe- 
 ditions ; there was no fun in carrying a fat Eng- 
 lish lady up that steep path on a broiling summer 
 day. I soon acquired the reputation of being a 
 great loiterer. Sometimes when I had succeeded 
 in putting a considerable distance between the ad- 
 vancing train and myself, I would turn resolutely, 
 and proceed at headlong speed down the mountain, 
 never once pausing to take breath until I reached 
 the inn with the sign of the swine, at Val Carlos. 
 
 " ' No travellers would have hired me had my 
 real character been known ; but Jose Ybarnegaray 
 Cavorde, the best guide in this region, was a fast 
 friend of Mother Bordagaray. He always recom- 
 mended her donkey, apologizing for every .new es- 
 capade of mine as something hitherto unheard of. 
 
 '" The children all liked me, for I was so low 
 they could mount me easily ; when they twisted 
 their hands in my shaggy coat to make it easier in 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 227 
 
 clambering up, I never showed resentment. Some- 
 times it was a little boy or girl whom I carried 
 safely to visit his or her father in the Carlist camp, 
 or two older girls who were going to some merry- 
 making on the fete of St. Jean. Mother Borda- 
 garay herself always went to the hot springs on the 
 eve of that day. There was a tradition handed 
 down through many generations, and it ran as fol- 
 lows : " Whoever should then fill his mouth with 
 sulphur-water from one of the springs, and rapidly 
 run the gauntlet of the long lines of jeering spec- 
 tators, pausing a moment at each of the springs, 
 returning to his starting point without having once 
 laughed, or spilled, or swallowed a drop of the 
 precious water, should be exempt from toothache 
 throughout all the following year." 
 
 " ' Of course there were seasons when there were 
 no tourists; then Jose changed his profession of 
 guide for that of muleteer, or even of smuggler. 
 On these occasions he usually came for me, and I 
 made long journeys by circuitous mountain-paths 
 from Spain to France, with skins of fiery Spanish 
 wine that were never entered at the custom-house. 
 We returned with gunpowder and cartridges for 
 
2 28 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 the Carlists. It was this train of Jose's that Rosa 
 Bonheur painted in her celebrated picture called 
 Muleteers Crossing the Pyrenees.' " 
 
 " There is a photograph of it in. that album of 
 your father's," remarked Tint, in an aside to Ruby 
 Rose ; " you will see a portrait of Roland in the 
 donkey at your left hand ; he is quickly recogniz- 
 able, for he is straying away as usual from the 
 rest, and is looking back to see if Jose Barnegaray 
 has noticed him. Rusk-in describes this picture at 
 length, and devotes a few lines to the perverse 
 Roland." Ruby at once ran for the photograph, 
 while Flossy read from Ruskin the following para- 
 graph : — 
 
 " What solemn trustworthiness and official respectability 
 in the richly caparisoned and belled mule that leads. What 
 amusing knowingness in the multitude of long ears point- 
 ing straight forwards. What awkward obstinate-headed- 
 ness, expecting cudgel- blows, in the young rebel straying 
 from line to pluck thistles ! " 
 
 " The young rebel was Roland, was it not ? " 
 asked Flossy ; Tint with a nod went on with Ro- 
 land's story. 
 
 " ' So posing for Rosa Bonheur was the great ser- 
 vice which you rendered Art ? ' I asked. 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 229 
 
 " ' That was something,' replied Roland, ' but I 
 have done more than that. Surrounded by some 
 of the highest peaks of the Pyrenees is a little val- 
 ley, itself farther up 
 above the level of 
 the sea than the tops 
 of most mountains. 
 Here there is a very 
 old, old church, of 
 the time of the Cru- 
 saders. It contains 
 a great treasure in 
 an altar-piece by Mu- 
 rillo, a large painting of many figures, the central 
 and principal ones being a Virgin and child of ex- 
 treme loveliness, seated upon the clouds. One morn- 
 ing a stranger appeared in our village, and hired 
 Jose Barnegaray to go with him, taking a small 
 train of mules, to sell umbrellas through the remote 
 towns of the Pyrenees. Our town was, as I have 
 said, the last in one direction which the diligence 
 reached, and the umbrellas arrived by this convey- 
 ance the following evening. Mother Bordagaray 
 looked with a covetous eye at the stock of hand- 
 
230 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 some bright covers lying like so many butterflies 
 with folded wings, or gladiolus buds only waiting 
 for the hand of summer to touch their springs and 
 make them burst into brilliant bloom. Her own 
 umbrella had been bright red once, but the suns 
 of fifty years had somewhat faded its original scar- 
 let. It was her constant companion, and she still 
 stroked its horn handle caressingly, and wrapped it 
 carefully in her apron whenever she was caught 
 with it in a shower. Some of 
 ^ the stranger's umbrellas had neat 
 
 I oilskin cases, a better protection 
 for the umbrella in case of rain, 
 •she thought, than her apron; for 
 Mother Bordagaray would sooner 
 ] let the rain beat upon her own 
 I unprotected head than subject her 
 umbrella to the insult of a storm. 
 Mother Bordagaray asked the 
 I price of one of the umbrellas ; it 
 was far beyond her modest purse, 
 but the trader obligingly offered 
 to take in exchange her brass knocker. The good 
 woman looked at the little snub-nosed angel, and 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 231 
 
 her heart misgave her, though she acknowledged 
 that the profit would all be on her side. That 
 evening Jose Barnegaray came to hire me for the 
 trip. " If you will only charge the man enough for 
 the use of the donkey to buy me one of his um- 
 brellas, you shall have one when we return," said 
 Jose; and the bargain was closed. 
 
 " * As we passed through the various obscure vil- 
 lages that 
 lay like the 
 beads of a 
 rosaryalong 
 our lonely 
 route, it be- 
 came evi- 
 dent that 
 the umbrel- 
 1 a - trader 
 •was some- 
 thing more than an umbrella-trader, pure and sim- 
 ple. He was not so anxious to obtain money in 
 return for his wares as to exchange them for old 
 and curious objects. Here he found a dish of won- 
 derful faience, gay with painted flowers, and there 
 
232 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 an elaborately carved crucifix, a bit of old lace, or a 
 steel gauntlet, some relic of Charlemagne, perhaps, 
 it was so rusty and so finely damascened with ara- 
 besques with inlay of silver and gold. Once he 
 supplied all the cures of a little church with extra 
 gay umbrellas in return for a faded silken altar- 
 cloth, heavily embroidered by some noble lady, they 
 had forgotten who ; but the trader sold it afterwards 
 as the work of the mother of Henry of Navarre. 
 
 " 1 If Longfellow had written his verses on Spain 
 at this time Roland might have used the following 
 stanza in describing this excursion : — 
 
 " The crosses in the mountain pass, 
 Mules gay with tassels, the loud din 
 Of muleteers, the tethered ass 
 That crops the dusty wayside grass, 
 And cavaliers with spurs of brass 
 Alighting at the inn." 
 
 For Roland, even though tethered, was just the 
 one to stray away, and an old pair of brazen spurs 
 discovered at a Wayside Inn was handed over in 
 part payment for an umbrella. 
 
 "'At length we reached the little town in the 
 valley which I mentioned as possessing the beau- 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 233 
 
 tiful picture of Murillo. The guardians of the church 
 knew its worth, and could not be persuaded to part 
 with it upon any terms. The picture seemed to 
 exert a fascination upon the trader, and he acquired 
 a reputation among the peasants of being very pious, 
 by resorting frequently to the chapel to look at it. 
 We made this village our turning-point, and speedily 
 retraced our steps through the towns we had left 
 at one side on our upward journey. The apparent 
 object now was not to sell umbrellas, of which there 
 was quite a quantity left, or to collect curiosities, 
 but to get out of the country as rapidly as possible, 
 and to dodge all the custom-house officers. When 
 I found that we had passed my native village, and 
 were diverging more and more from it in hurrying 
 toward the nearest railroad-station, I was not at all 
 pleased. Slipping my head from the noose by which 
 we were all tethered together, one exceptionally dark 
 night (for we travelled at night now, only resting a 
 few hours during the heat of the day), I shook 
 the dust from my heels, and set out at a mad gal- 
 lop for Mother Bordagaray. Jose Barnegaray missed 
 me at daybreak, and was despatched by his employer 
 to fetch me back. He knew the short cuts over 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 the mountains ; and as I stopped occasionally to 
 rest and to refresh myself with a few piquant this- 
 tles, he came up the road brandishing his heavily- 
 loaded makillah, or mountaineer's stick, just as I 
 trotted in a shamefaced way into Mother Borda- 
 garay's court-yard. 
 
 "'I thought 
 you were com- 
 ing back this 
 way,' said 
 Mother Bor- 
 dagaray, when 
 she heard how 
 matters stood. 
 
 " ' True,' re- 
 plied Jose; 
 ' but now the 
 patron seems 
 only anxious to 
 reach the rail- 
 road; if he 
 comes this way 
 he must con- 
 tinue to Bayonne, whereas Pau is much nearer.' 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 235 
 
 " 1 When, then,' asked Mother Bordagaray, ' am 
 I to get my umbrella ? ' 
 
 " ' Thou mightest take it now,' replied Jose, ' but 
 that I have no time for thee to open all of them, 
 and call a meeting of thy neighbors to decide which 
 is the best'; whereupon Jose turned me about, and 
 began to rain stinging blows upon me with his ma- 
 killah. Mother Bordagaray, seeing her opportunity 
 for securing an umbrella vanishing, seized one by 
 chance. Jose, confident that his employer would 
 never miss it, and that he would in this way be 
 released from paying for my hire, nodded gayly to 
 Mother Bordagaray as he drove rapidly away. 
 
 11 We returned home after seeing the umbrella- 
 trader, his curiosities, and his umbrellas safely on 
 board the express-train for Paris, and found the vil- 
 lage in immense excitement. Gensdarmes and de- 
 tective officers were striding importantly or mysteri- 
 ously about, while some priests, whom I remembered 
 having seen at the little chapel of the Murillo Ma- 
 donna, were talking angrily at the inn. Scarcely 
 had we arrived when the officers laid hands upon 
 Jose Barnegaray, arresting him as the accomplice 
 of a thief, for the precious picture had been stolen 
 
236 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 from the chapel, and they were certain that the 
 umbrella-trader had taken it. In vain Jose protested 
 his innocence ; he was thrown into prison to await 
 the meeting of the court. When the court did meet 
 nothing could be proved against Jose. A high re- 
 ward had been offered for the lost picture, but 
 there existed no probability of its recovery, for the 
 thief was by this time beyond seas. Every one 
 was surprised during the hearing of the case to 
 see Mother Bordagaray rise and prefer a claim for 
 the hire of her donkey. 
 
 " ' Bones of Roland ! ' exclaimed Jose Barnegaray ; 
 1 you, at least, have no cause to complain ; did you 
 not yourself pick out the best umbrella that you 
 could lay your hands upon ? ' 
 
 "'Do you call this an umbrella?' shrieked 
 Mother Bordagaray, drawing a smooth round rod 
 from the neat oilskin case with a gesture that the 
 first Roland might have used in unsheathing his 
 famous sword. Only a smooth round rod, with no 
 resemblance to an umbrella, excepting the handle 
 and the case. The judge examined it critically. 
 ( Was this all ? ' he asked. 
 
 "'All,' replied Mother Bordagaray, 'except that 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 237 
 
 it had some pieces of oil-cloth wrapped around it 
 to help stuff out the case, and make it look more 
 like a real umbrella.' 
 
 " ' And where are the pieces of oil-cloth ? ' asked 
 the judge. 
 
 " ' I have tacked them up in my Roland's stable, 
 to help keep the rain out of the cracks.' 
 
 " ' You had better go and examine,' said the 
 judge to one of the detectives. A few moments 
 later the detective, two 
 gensdarmes, a priest, and 
 Mother Bordagaray filed 
 into my apartment with- 
 out so much as ever say- 
 ing, ' By your leave, Senor 
 Roland.' 
 
 " When the priest saw 
 what Mother Bordagaray, 
 with her defective eye- 
 sight, had nailed above 
 my manger, he fell upon 
 his knees, exclaiming : " Blessed Virgin ! it is not 
 the first time that thou and thy most worshipful 
 child didst inhabit a stable, and keep company with 
 an ass ! Hail Mary ! 
 
238 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " Ave, Regina ccelorum ! 
 Ave, Domina angelorum ! 
 Ora pro nobis ! " 
 
 Here was the figure of the Virgin and child which 
 the thief had cut from the great picture, and care- 
 fully rolled about the false umbrella ; the other fig- 
 ures had been treated in the same way, and the 
 precious packages deposited with various parts of 
 the merchandise. When I thought of the umbrella- 
 man's chagrin as he put his picture together, and 
 found the principal figures missing, I could have 
 laughed most heartily; but we donkeys make it a 
 point never to so far forget our dignity. To tell 
 the truth, too, I was somewhat vexed at the abrupt 
 way in which the Madonna had been taken away 
 from me, — from me, Roland of Roncesvalles the 
 second, a greater lover and patron of Art, by far, 
 than any of the " jolly fat friars," who were wont 
 to spend the long evenings in their mountain con- 
 vent, — 
 
 " Sitting round the great roaring fires, 
 Roaring louder than they." 
 
 They took it into their charge without thanking me 
 for its restoration, or thinking that but for my pro- 
 
THE STORY OF A DONKEY. 
 
 239 
 
 pensity to err from the path in which the short- 
 sighted vision of Jose Barnegaray considered it my 
 duty to walk, they would never again have looked 
 upon the Murillo Madonna.' " 
 
VAN-DYCK BROWN. 
 
VAN-DYCK BROWN. 
 
 TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 HE painter who best 
 understood dogs — 
 who probably paint- 
 ed the greatest num- 
 ber of them, from 
 the stag-hound and 
 great Newfoundland 
 to the tiny lapdog, 
 depicting every 
 shade of emotion in 
 a dog's nature — is, 
 no doubt, Sir Edwin Landseer. Even the children 
 in America are familiar with his pictures, through 
 the numerous photographs and engravings of them 
 displayed in every book and picture store. But there 
 was another artist who, though best known as a 
 portrait-painter, yet showed a wonderful sympathy for 
 
244 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 animals. This was Anthony Van Dyck, born at Ant- 
 werp and a pupil of Rubens. He studied, too, in 
 Italy, but a great part of his life was spent in Eng- 
 land, at the court of Charles I. " The extravagance 
 and fastidiousness of his tastes caused him to be 
 called the ' Cavalier Painter.' A restlessness of dis- 
 position and love of luxury rendered him discon- 
 tented in his native land. His refined and agreeable 
 manners made him a favorite at court, and especially 
 endeared him to the king, with whom his name is 
 always associated, from the frequent portraits of the 
 ill-fated monarch and his family which were executed 
 by his hand. The nobles of England were also eager 
 to patronize him, and he painted many single figures 
 or family pictures which are held as relics to the pres- 
 ent day. Among them are various likenesses of the 
 Arundels, of the Ladies Percy, the Earl of Northum- 
 berland, the Duke of Buckingham, the Pembrokes 
 and Wiltons, and the splendid portrait of Lady Vene- 
 tia Digby at Windsor Castle." 
 
 The great art-critic, Ruskin, says that no one has 
 painted a horse worthily since Van Dyck, and gives a 
 description of a knight on horseback painted by him, 
 which is almost, if not quite, as good as a copy of the 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 245 
 
 picture. u The knight," he says, " rides in a suit of 
 rusty armor. It has evidently been polished carefully 
 and gleams brightly here and there ; but all the pol- 
 ishing in the world will never take the battle-dints 
 and battle-darkness out of it. His horse is gray, — its 
 mane deep and soft, part of it shaken in front over 
 its forehead ; the rest, in enormous masses of waving 
 gold, falls on its neck, and rises, rippled by the wind, 
 over the rider's armor. The saddle-cloth is of a dim 
 red, fading into leathern brown, gleaming with spar- 
 kles of gold. The knight's armor, too, is chased here 
 and there with gold ; the delicate, rich, point-lace 
 collar falling on the embossed breast-plate ; his dark 
 hair flowing over his shoulders; a crimson silk scarf 
 fastened round his waist and floating behind him. 
 And all of this — the rich, light, crimson scarf, the 
 flowing hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt 
 features, and the lace collar — does not in the least 
 diminish the manliness, but adds feminineness. One 
 sees that the knight is indeed a soldier, while he 
 is accomplished in other ways and tender in all 
 thoughts." 
 
 Under the head of " Van-Dyck Brown," Tint told 
 the children a story of one of Van Dyck's pictures, — 
 
246 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 a painting in which both portraits and animals fig- 
 ured, — " The Children of Charles I.," of the Berlin 
 Gallery, in which " the quaint little princes and prin- 
 cess stand demurely and pathetically before the spec- 
 tator." Little Prince Charles stands in the centre, 
 with his hand resting caressingly upon the head of a 
 huge mastiff. He is dressed in the rich costume of 
 the age, — a point-lace collar, such as Ruskin de- 
 scribes in the picture of the knight, with cuffs to 
 match, falling over a rich satin vest ; the sleeves are 
 slashed ; he wears large rosettes on his shoes and at 
 his knee ; his hair falls carelessly upon his shoulders, 
 and is banged across the forehead ; the face of the 
 little prince is sweetly serious and thoughtful. The 
 Princess Elizabeth stands at the extreme right of 
 Prince Charlie. A row of large pearls encircles the 
 delicate little throat, and dainty ringlets shadow the 
 waxy-pale face, as pure as it is fair ; the little figure is 
 as frail and spiritual as a lily, with a far-away look in 
 the dreamy eyes. The other children are in the back- 
 ground ; but Tint's story dealt more especially with 
 the characters already mentioned, and a little King 
 Charles spaniel crouching in the left-hand corner. 
 It was a story in which fiction was well mixed with 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 247 
 
 truth ; and we advise our little readers, as they grow 
 older, to make a study of the fascinating pages of 
 English history, that they may learn the real facts 
 of— 
 
 THE STORY. 
 
 Once, when King Charles I. determined to have the 
 court-painter, Van Dyck, paint a portrait of his chil- 
 dren, the little heir-apparent, Prince Charlie, and his 
 sister the Princess Elizabeth, begged that their pets 
 might be introduced in the picture. Elizabeths pet 
 was a silky little lapdog, called 
 a " spaniel gentle," with deli- 
 cate, pointed nose, liquid, hazel 
 eyes, and long ears as soft as 
 floss, and Floss was the dog's 
 name. King Charles liked 
 these tiny dogs so much that they became the fashion 
 at his court, and were called King Charles spaniels. 
 Floss once belonged to a family in the lowest rank of 
 London society, and had not, like some of the other 
 court dogs, been used to refinement and luxury from 
 her birth. She was what is called a "parvenue," or 
 new-comer, and, as such, seemed to think that, to 
 
248 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 maintain her footing in society, she must outdo the 
 established aristocracy in fastidiousness and punctilio. 
 No dog among them all was more particular as to the 
 quality of the velvet on her cushion, or the down in 
 it ; she regarded with a critical, disapproving eye the 
 gold lace with which it was trimmed. None were so 
 sensitive to the perfumes used by the people who pre- 
 sumed to fondle her, or so squeamish concerning food 
 which was not served from gold or silver. And yet 
 Floss had been owned by a factory operative (for they 
 had certain factories even in those days). She once 
 thought herself happy if the butcher, above whose 
 shop the family lived, occasionally 
 threw her a bone ; and the smells of 
 the neighborhood were unknown to 
 Rimmel, Lubin, or any other per- 
 fumer to their royal majesties. Floss 
 was walking in those days, with the 
 children of the operative, through 
 one of the great parks, when the 
 royal coach, containing the royal chil- 
 dren, dashed by. Elizabeth w T as at 
 the window, and exclaimed at the sight of the pretty 
 spaniel, whereupon one of the outriders, stooping 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 249 
 
 until his head lay upon his horse's neck, caught the 
 dog at one fell swoop, and presented her to the prin- 
 cess. The lady-in-waiting, who had charge of the 
 royal children for the drive, threw a handful of coins 
 from the carriage window to the disconsolate little 
 folks, so rudely deprived 
 of their pet; then Floss 
 and the equipage swept 
 from their sight. The 
 owner of the dog was 
 very angry, and, though 
 he could then do nothing 
 to help himself, he swore 
 t h a t h e j 
 would be Heiii 
 avenged 
 one day 
 for the rob- 
 
 bery. 
 
 Prince 
 Charlie's 
 favorite, 
 the great 
 
 mastiff Brutus, had his history also. Shortly before 
 
250 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 the painting of the picture, the royal family spent a 
 few weeks at Stopford Castle, near Worcester. The 
 castle was situated at a ford ; and a legend derived its 
 name from a custom practised by its former lords of 
 levying a compulsory toll on all travellers who passed 
 that way. There was a grange or farm connected 
 with the castle. Prince Charlie sometimes visited 
 this place with the keeper, to see the dogs. There 
 was a noble leash of hounds kept for hunting, and in 
 a large kennel the great watch-dog Brutus, as solitary 
 and morose as a hermit. By dint of plentiful gifts of 
 meat and cautious caressing, Charlie gradually won 
 the good-will of the huge creature, until at last he 
 allowed him to ride upon his back, and even to creep 
 into his capacious kennel and nestle up against him 
 on the clean straw. When Charlie returned to Hamp- 
 ton Court Palace, in London, and the picture began, 
 Brutus was sent for to figure in it. He was brought 
 to the city by stage-coach, chained like a criminal. 
 Perhaps he felt the indignity, for he was very surly 
 and frightened his guards out of their senses. No 
 one could be induced to sit beside him, and he occu- 
 pied the top of the coach in solitary grandeur. He 
 recognized the little prince, however, and allowed the 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 small white hand to rest confidingly on his giant 
 head. Floss snarled at the intruder as altogether too 
 plebeian for her ladyship, while Brutus turned his 
 back on the tiny creature with lofty disdain. After 
 the portrait was finished he went up to Stopford 
 again, and many years passed before he and Prince 
 Charlie met. 
 
 In this interval the kingdom turned itself over. A 
 revolution transpired, and the gay, kind-hearted King 
 Charles I. was beheaded. Prince Charlie and his 
 mother were in exile ; but the little Princess Eliza- 
 beth, with one of her younger brothers, the Duke of 
 Gloucester, shared their father's imprisonment. Be- 
 fore his execution the king took the little duke upon 
 his knee and said, " Now they will cut off thy father's 
 head." At these words the child looked very stead- 
 fastly upon him. " Mark, child, what I say : they will 
 cut off my head, and perhaps make thee a king. But 
 mark what I say : thou must not be a king as long as 
 thy brothers Charles and James are alive. They will 
 cut off thy brothers' heads when they can catch 
 them ! And thy head, too, they will cut off at last ! 
 Therefore, I charge thee, do not be made a king by 
 them." And the little duke replied, impulsively but 
 
252 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 determinedly, " I will be torn in pieces first ! " Then 
 the king turned to Elizabeth, and left with her his 
 message to the queen : " Tell her, sweet heart, I loved 
 her to the last." 
 
 After the kings death Oliver Cromwell governed 
 England. Many of his followers were very religious 
 men, carrying their religion even to fanaticism ; many 
 more were unscrupulous, ambitious men, covering 
 their schemes with a pretence of piety. Everything 
 seemed completely changed. Hypocrisy and cant 
 were now the fashion, instead of gayety, luxury, and 
 dissipation. The old nobles were impoverished and 
 degraded, while the meanest and vilest of the popu- 
 lace rose to posts of honor. 
 
 It was the custom of the times for men to change 
 their given names from George and Arthur and 
 Harry to Zerubbabel, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and even 
 into whole phrases taken from the Bible, making 
 such odd combinations as Grace-be-here Humgudg- 
 eon, Praise-God Barebones, Fight-the-good-fight-of- 
 faith Dolittle Fly-debate Ridaway, and others even 
 more ridiculous. The factory operative who had 
 once owned Floss served in Cromwell's army, and 
 now rejoiced in the name of Vengeance- is-mine 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 2 53 
 
 Quackenbos, quite forgetting to whom the Scripture 
 imputes these words. Since his discharge from the 
 army he had become a button-maker, and he peti- 
 tioned the Parliament to have the little Princess 
 Elizabeth indentured to him as an apprentice. His 
 petition was granted ; but the royal child never under- 
 went the degradation, for she died of grief shortly 
 after the execution of her father. On the day that 
 she died Floss was seen digging industriously in the 
 garden, at the same time giving vent to piercing 
 yelps. The dog was returned to her former master, 
 who put her upon the coarsest of diet and clipped 
 her silky ears, that she might be known as a sup- 
 porter of Cromwell ; for his followers had been nick- 
 named Crop-ears by the Cavaliers. 
 
 The royal family had friends in England and Scot- 
 land, who were working during 
 this time with all their might 
 for the return and restoration of 
 Prince Charlie. At length he 
 did come to Scotland, and was 
 crowned king in the Palace of 
 Holyrood, in Edinburgh. In 
 after years another Charles Stuart came in similar cir- 
 
254 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 cumstances, and found the same support. It was for 
 him that the popular song, " Wha '11 be King but 
 Charlie ? " was written, — though it would have an- 
 swered just as well for the Prince Charlie of our 
 story, — and expressed the wild enthusiasm of the 
 Highlanders who flocked about him. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 " There 's news frae Moirdart, cam yest're'en, 
 Will soon gar mony ferlie ; 
 For ships o' war hae just come in, 
 An' landed royal Charlie. 
 
 " Come thro' the heather, around him gather, 
 Ye 're a' the welcomer early ; 
 Around him cling wi' a' your kin, 
 For wha '11 be king but Charlie ? 
 
 " The Highland clans, wi' sword in hand, 
 Frae John-O'Groat's to Airly, 
 Hae to a man declared to stand 
 Or fa' wi' royal Charlie. 
 
 " There 's ne'er a lass in a' the land 
 But vows baith late an' early 
 To man she '11 ne'er gie heart or hand 
 Wha wadna ficht for Charlie. 
 
 " Come thro' the heather, around him gather, 
 
 Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' thegether, 
 An' crown your rightfu', lawfu' king; 
 For wha '11 be king but Charlie ? " 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 255 
 
 There was another very popular one, of which the 
 refrain ran, — 
 
 " Over the water and over the sea, 
 And over the water to Charlie ; 
 Come weal, come woe, we '11 gather and go, 
 And live or die with Charlie." 
 
 And many others like the following : — 
 
 "As Charlie he came up the gate, 
 
 His face shone like the day: 
 I grat to see the lad come back 
 
 That had been lang away. 
 Then ilka bonny lassie sang, 
 
 As to the door she ran, 
 ' Our king shall hae his own again, 
 
 An' Charlie is the man : ' 
 Out ow'r yon moory mountain, 
 
 An' down the craggy glen, 
 Of naething else our lassies sing 
 
 But Charlie and his men." 
 
 Songs reveal the popular heart, and these tell how 
 completely it was bound up in the young prince. 
 Gathering an army in Scotland, he marched upon 
 London. At Worcester, Cromwell met him with an 
 army twice as great, and attacked him on all sides. 
 " The whole Scottish force was either killed or taken 
 
256 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 prisoners." Charlie fled, separating himself from his 
 companions, and for six weeks wandered a fugitive in 
 different disguises and in various places. Sometimes 
 he was harbored by Catholics ; and " the priests hole, 
 
 or place where they were obliged to conceal their per- 
 secuted priests, was employed for sheltering their 
 sovereign." Many houses in these troublous times 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 257 
 
 contained secret staircases and sliding panels, through 
 which he was secretly introduced and as mysteriously 
 spirited away. Once he hid in an oak, and saw the 
 soldiers who were in search of him come up and stop 
 under it to consult as to the way he had taken. 
 " When wealth was offered to any who would betray 
 him, — when death was denounced against all who 
 should shelter him, — cottagers and serving-men kept 
 his secret truly, and kissed his hand under his mean 
 disguise with as much reverence as if he had been 
 seated on his ancestral throne." At length a vessel 
 was found at Shoreham, in which he embarked, and 
 escaped safely to Normandy. Once before this he 
 found himself at Stopford, close beset by Cromwell's 
 soldiers. As he slipped into the courtyard of the 
 grange, he was nearly thrown to the ground by the 
 caresses of the old mastiff Brutus, who recognized 
 him. Quieting the dog as best he could, he crept 
 into his kennel, as in the old playful days. Shortly 
 after, the soldiers came up in search of a blood-hound 
 kept at Stopford Grange. Having found the animal, 
 they showed him a gauntlet which had belonged to 
 Charlie. The dog sprang at once toward the kennel 
 in which the king was concealed, but was met at the 
 
258 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 door by Brutus, who engaged him in savage conflict. 
 The men looked on stupidly until their commander 
 appeared. He, finding them engaged in a dog-fight, 
 — at that time a prohibited amusement, — shot both 
 dogs, and sharply ordered the men away, without dis- 
 covering the young king. We can imagine how he 
 wept, after their departure, over the brave dog which 
 had saved his life at the expense of its own. 
 
 Even after Charlie left the country, his friends did 
 not entirely despair, and drinking-songs like the fol- 
 lowing were still sung: — 
 
 " Brave gallants, stand up, 
 
 And avaunt, ye base carles ! 
 Were there death in the cup, 
 
 Here 's a health to King Charles ! 
 Though he wanders through dangers, 
 
 Unaided, unknown, 
 Dependent on strangers, 
 
 Estranged from his own ; 
 Though 'tis under our breath, 
 
 Amidst forfeits and perils, 
 Here 's to honor and faith, 
 
 And a health to King Charles ! 
 Let such honors abound 
 
 As the time can afford, 
 The knee on the ground, 
 
 And the hand on the sword ; 
 
TWO DOGS OF VAN DYCK. 
 
 259 
 
 But the time shall come round 
 
 When, mid lords, dukes, and earls, 
 
 The loud trumpets shall sound, 
 
 1 Here 's a health to King Charles ! ' " 
 
 After the death of Cromwell, the time did come 
 round, and Charles was recalled to England and made 
 king by the act of the people. 
 
 One evening, as he strolled sadly in the garden of 
 Hampton Court, thinking of his childhood, he ob- 
 served a dirty, disfigured little dog digging persist- 
 ently under a rosebush. He ordered an attendant to 
 drive out the cur, when the animal, which had found 
 something, dragged it forward and laid it, fawning, at 
 his feet. Charles bent down to examine the object ; 
 it was a long glove, which he recognized as one for- 
 merly belonging to his sister. Then he looked at the 
 dog again, and saw that it was poor little Floss. To 
 have made the story more touching, Floss should 
 have died of grief for her mistress ; but she had lived 
 to a good old age, sharing perhaps the hope of the 
 land, that the " king should hae his own again." 
 When she did die, it was not upon plebeian straw, 
 but on the downy, gold-bedecked, velvet cushion of 
 former years. 
 
260 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott tells a far more interesting story 
 of the hidings of King Charles II. in his novel of 
 " Woodstock." In this, too, a dog, like Brutus, fig- 
 ures, — a great Scotch deer-hound named Bevis, 
 which, he tells us, had its prototype in a dog of his 
 own, given him by the Chief of Glengarry. A draw- 
 ing of this dog, which was afterward engraved, was 
 made by Sir Edwin Landseer. I wish that I might 
 place this engraving, connected as it is with Prince 
 Charlie and a great painter, by the side of the Two 
 Dogs of Van Dyck. 
 
BITUMEN. 
 
BITUMEN. 
 
 THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 ND now I wonder if you can 
 imagine," asked Tint, engag- 
 ingly, "what that little mound 
 of dark paint just 
 over my right eye 
 is composed of? " 
 
 "It looks like 
 tar," replied Ruby, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Nearer right 
 than I should have 
 
 expected," rejoined 
 Tint; " it 's mummy." 
 
 " Mummy ! " repeated Flossy, in astonishment ; 
 " what do you mean ? " 
 
 "Just this," explained Tint; "it is bitumen, and 
 bitumen is a kind of pitch, or, as you said, tar, with 
 
264 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 which the Egyptians daubed the wrappings of their 
 mummies. A transparent brown paint is formed 
 from it, very fascinating to use, as certain effects 
 can be made with it which are very difficult to ob- 
 tain in any other way." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," asked Flossy, " that that 
 
 stand in a corner of his room. I wish you would tell 
 me about her, you dear Paint Bogy. You must know, 
 if you have something to do with all colored pictures, 
 for her coffin is covered with gay paintings. The 
 catalogue says they tell her history, though all that it 
 
 little blot of bitumen was really 
 once in a mummy-coffin, like those 
 in the ' Way Collection ' at the Bos- 
 ton Art Museum ? There is one 
 there, Tint, that was an Egyptian 
 princess, with her face all gilded. 
 Ruby and I saw her one Saturday. 
 Ruby said she made him think of 
 his grandma's old-fashioned clock, 
 that stands in the corner of her 
 bedroom, and he wished the Mu- 
 seum folks would sell the princess 
 to him; then he could have >her 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 265 
 
 sees fit to repeat is that she was a lady of rank ; and 
 then it gives a prayer translated from the queer 
 picture-writing. I should like to be able to read it 
 for myself. It seems just like the illustrated rebuses 
 that I love to puzzle out. Is it so very hard ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the good-natured Paint Bogy, " it 
 would be rather hard for you just now ; but keep on 
 studying, and you may be able to read it some day. 
 Girls know a lot more than they used to ; and I don't 
 despair of some time seeing eleven-year-old ones who 
 can decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics as readily as you 
 read a bar of music to one of your Sunday-school 
 hymns. I shall be very glad when that day comes, 
 for, as you guessed, I am the direct founder of the 
 1 queer picture-writing.' If you want an explanation 
 of the method, turn to your ' St. Nicholas ' for Janu- 
 ary, 1877. You will find a very good one in the 
 Young Contributors' Department, page 227. You 
 can readily imagine that, if Egyptians turned even 
 the reading part of their books into pictures, they must 
 have been an extremely art-loving people. Their ar- 
 tistic taste showed itself not only in painting, but in 
 sculpture and architecture as well ; and the more the 
 relics which they have left are studied, the more we 
 
266 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 wonder at their knowledge and skill. When you hear 
 artistic people raving about ' the antique] you may be 
 sure that they mean some broken-nosed specimen of 
 Greek or Roman sculpture ; but anything Greek or 
 Roman has no right whatever to be called antique 
 when compared with Egypt. Why, only think, little 
 ones, the Egyptians painted and chiselled and builded 
 thousands of years before Romulus was born, or Phid- 
 ias taught the Greeks the meaning of art. Thousands 
 of years is a very long time. It is not two thousand, 
 you know, back to the very first Christmas ; and last 
 year, when the Centennial made old things fashion- 
 able, people thought themselves very lucky if they 
 could show a portrait of one of their ancestors 
 painted by Stuart or Copley one hundred years ago. 
 The oldest art that we know much about is Egyptian 
 art. Some of its specimens are very beautiful as well 
 as old. I should be making an unpardonable omis- 
 sion not to find a savor of it in one of my freckles. 
 
 " Then, too, we have very little of the literature of 
 Egypt, and nearly all that we know of her history has 
 been handed down to us by Art. 
 
 " So you want to hear about the princess at the Art 
 Museum ? She did not belong, in one sense, to the 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 267 
 
 first families of Egypt. I mean she did not live in 
 the time of the pyramid-builders, that ancient period 
 of Egypt's history. She was almost a modern, being 
 a member of the twenty-first dynasty, and living only 
 about a thousand years 'before Christ. Her name 
 was Anchpefhir, and she was a daughter of a Pha- 
 raoh who made his seat of government at San, or 
 Tanis, near the mouth of the Nile. 
 
 He reign- 
 ed over 
 only a 
 small part 
 of the 
 
 ■v 
 
 country; for the crafty priests at the magnificent 
 temple of Thebes, farther up the Nile, had usurped 
 the royal power, and caused a division of the king- 
 dom. The poor king could not even turn to the 
 consolations of religion, for his religion had been 
 stolen away from him by the traitor priests, and made 
 
268 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 into a means of exciting his subjects to rebellion. It 
 almost seemed to him sometimes as if the old gods 
 were dead, or leagued against him. Thus brooding, 
 he would spring into his chariot, and drive swiftly 
 away toward the open desert, faster and ever faster, 
 until the bitter thoughts that stung him like a 
 swarm of wasps should be left behind. 
 
 "Anchpefhir would wander with her maidens in the 
 palm-grove by the side of the noble Nile, as a daugh- 
 ter of another Pharaoh had done long before ; or 
 would take the fan of ostrich-plumes from the slave 
 who tended her little brother Psusenes, as he lay upon 
 his silken cushions, — for he was a cripple, — and fan 
 him, narrating, at the same time, stories of Egypt's 
 ancient pride and greatness. As the boy listened, he 
 would press his thin, yellow fingers, that quivered 
 with excitement like flakes of gold-leaf, against his 
 throbbing temples and sunken, feverish cheeks. 
 Then Anchpefhir would tell of Luxor and Karnak, 
 with its half-mile avenue of sphinxes and Hall of 
 Columns ; of hundred-gated Thebes ; of Memnon and 
 his brother, the two great sitting statues that every 
 morning responded to the touch of light with gentle 
 music ; of the immense temple of the Ramesseum ; 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 269 
 
 of the sacred island of Philae, with its palms and 
 temples ; and of the tombs of the kings, — ' and all 
 of these, all, in the possession of the rebellious 
 priests ! But we have the pyramids,' she would 
 add, 1 and we alone the faith of the pyramid-builders. 
 Father says the priests have degraded the old relig- 
 ion, and are leading the people astray ; that the 
 ancient faith of Egypt was something noble and sub- 
 lime ; the sacred animals and the images were only 
 symbols, but the people have forgotten this, and the 
 priests do not teach them correctly ; they are now all 
 idolaters. He says that our fathers commanded us to 
 embalm the dead, and thus impress upon our minds 
 the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the 
 body. But the priests teach that at death the soul 
 passes into some animal, and now the people pray to 
 bulls and cats and serpents, and have forgotten the 
 service of Truth. Some day the people shall be 
 taught again the true faith, for you know the augury 
 said that I should possess palaces and cities some 
 day.' 
 
 " ' Do not speak of the augury,' said Psusenes, 
 with a deep scowl ; ' you know our father has forbid- 
 den that any one should so much as mention it, and 
 
2 JO ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 you have yourself promised to die rather than ful- 
 fil it.' 
 
 " ' I have promised to die rather than marry Shi- 
 shack,' said the girl ; ' but that may not be what the 
 augury means, after all.' 
 
 " ' What else could it mean ? ' asked the young 
 prince, moodily ; ' what were its words ? ' 
 
 " 1 That I should marry a priestly king, who should 
 build a glorious temple and establish the true worship 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 271 
 
 of Osiris, with the simple rites of the pyramid-build- 
 ers ; that I should be the most splendid queen of my 
 time ; battles should be fought, palaces builded, and 
 poems written in my honor, whose fame should sur- 
 vive the ages ; that I should be loved more than 
 woman was ever loved, and my husband be the most 
 celebrated of kings.' 
 
 " 1 And Shishack, the son of the high-priest at 
 Thebes, has heard of the augury and appropriated 
 it to himself. You know that a solemn convocation 
 of the nation was held at Karnak, and Shishack 
 spread the augury before the oracle in the temple, 
 who ratified it ; the people followed the example, 
 crying, " An undivided Egypt and the daughter of 
 Pharaoh ! " ' 
 
 "'I know it,' replied Anchpefhir; 'but I do not 
 believe the augury meant Shishack. Do you remem- 
 ber, Psusenes, the visit of the Princess Maqueda ? ' 
 
 '"Yes, the Hindu girl, who kept asking conun- 
 drums, and puzzled us all with fables and enigmas 
 which she wished us to explain. She visited us two 
 years ago. They say that she is Queen of the Sabe- 
 ans now. But what of her, sister ? ' 
 
 " ' She said that she was visiting every nation under 
 
272 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 the sun in search of the greatest, the richest, and the 
 wisest king in the whole earth, for she was determined 
 to marry no other. She had seen Shishack, but he 
 was not the one she sought. I told her of the au- 
 gury, and she asked me why I did not go in search 
 of this wonderful prince. ''.Because," I answered, "if 
 I am very good, he will hear of my fame and come in 
 search of me, and that will be better than to have 
 sought for him." " And what," said she, "if I should 
 find him first ? " " It will be better," I answered, " to 
 deserve and not to have than to have and not deserve. 
 Besides, the King of Heaven, the Judge and the 
 Avenger, always does give to every one what he 
 merits ; and if you find the prince first, it will be 
 because you are the most deserving."' 
 
 " One day, not long after this conversation, some- 
 thing remarkable happened, — something destined to 
 turn the whole current of the Princess Anchpefhirs 
 life. 
 
 " While seated at her window she was summoned 
 to the presence of her royal father to hear that the 
 augury was. about to be fulfilled ; a king who an- 
 swered to its description had proposed for her hand 
 and been accepted. 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 2 73 
 
 " ' Not Shishack, father, — not the usurper ? ' cried 
 Anchpefhir. 
 
 "'It is a foreign prince,' replied her father; 'and 
 in wedding him you will ally a powerful nation to 
 
 Egypt, and, while securing a brilliant future to your- 
 self, will leave the kingdom to your brother. He 
 whom you are to wed, O Anchpefhir, is the great and 
 noble Solomon.' 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " ' But I do not understand, O my father,' replied 
 the princess. ' The Israelites were our slaves long 
 ago, — were they not ? How can a people who have 
 been slaves be noble?' (Poor little girl! the same 
 question has been asked in our day by heads that are 
 older and should be wiser than hers.) ' And their 
 religion, — it is very different from ours, they say. 
 How, then, can it be the true religion that the au- 
 gury foretold ? ' (Another question which has puz- 
 zled the brains of other good heterodox and orthodox 
 people, who were neither Egyptians nor Jews.) 
 
 " * Hearken, Anchpefhir,' said Pharaoh, after a 
 pause ; 4 what I have done has been advisedly done. 
 That you may understand my motives, know, my 
 daughter, that the race of the Hebrews is as old as 
 our own. That they have been our captives argues 
 only the fortunes of war. Our history tells us they 
 have always been regarded as our equals by our an- 
 cestors. In the days of the pyramid-builders, one 
 Zaphnath-paaneah, the Revealer of Secrets, whom 
 the Hebrews call Joseph, was made Viceroy, though 
 he belonged to this very race. He was a mighty 
 magician, like unto this later Solomon (who, we 
 know, governs all the jinns and genii, and is King 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 275 
 
 of the Afreets, Wizards, Fairies, Demons, and all 
 Wonder-working Spirits). Zaphnath-paaneah was 
 even admitted into the class of the priesthood, 
 marrying Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of 
 On. A princess of our race, daughter of a Pharaoh 
 greater than thy father, adopted a Hebrew baby, 
 bringing him up as her own son and heir-apparent 
 to the throne. She had him educated at the College 
 for Priests, at Heliopolis, and initiated into all the 
 deepest mysteries and secrets of our religion. He, 
 too, became a magician more powerful than any of 
 our own, and by his enchantments he delivered his 
 people out of our hand. With his fellow-countrymen 
 he carried away to the new land the most sacred rites 
 of our religion, and all its noblest and loftiest ideas. 
 His successors have kept the religion purer than our 
 priests have; and Egypt's loftiest, ancient faith is 
 found no longer in Egypt, but exists woven, almost 
 without change, into the new fabric of the Hebrew 
 religion.' 
 
 " Pharaoh's assertion may sound strangely to us, 
 but it was true. ' God has made of one blood all 
 nations, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they 
 might feel after him and find him, though he be not 
 far from every one of us.' 
 
276 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 " Here is a part of a prayer which Anchpefhir was 
 taught. It may serve to show you that she and her 
 people were nearer to being Christians than you have 
 supposed. 
 
 « < PRAYER. 
 
 " ' Hail, thou Lord of the length of times.' (Is not that 
 like our Jehovah, 1 the same yesterday, to-day, and forever' ?) 
 ' King of gods, whose soul is made for watching, who is con- 
 tinually showering happiness upon his creatures, — from him 
 descend the waters of the Nile, from him proceeds the wind.' 
 (Here, again; can this be any other than he 'from whom 
 cometh down every good and every perfect gift'?) 'He fills 
 the realms of space, because the stars that move therein obey 
 him in the height of heaven, — the constellations which move 
 onward from his dwelling-place, as well as the constellations 
 which remain at rest.' (When Solomon first heard his wife 
 repeating this, it must have seemed very natural to him. Per- 
 haps he joined her with ' Praise ye him, sun and moon ; 
 praise him, all ye stars of light ; praise him, ye heaven of 
 heavens ! ') ' The whole earth gives glory to him, beautiful 
 and lovely. All who see him, of whatever country, respect 
 and love him. He it is who executes judgment in the two 
 worlds ' (heaven and earth). ' He is the praise of his Father. 
 Of mighty arm, he overthrows the impure ; he breaks down 
 the barriers of the wicked ; he fabricated this world with his 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 277 
 
 hand. That which thy Father ordained for thee, — let it be 
 done according to his word.' 
 
 " I have not filled out the parallels, but they are so 
 evident that nearly every Sabbath-school scholar can 
 give them from memory. It will be a good exercise, 
 some Sunday afternoon, to find Bible verses corre- 
 sponding to each sentence. 
 
 "And so it was decided that Anchpefhir should 
 marry King Solomon. As we trace her history from 
 .the time of her betrothal, we find that it ran in the 
 same channels as the story of a modern young lady 
 in similar circumstances. Anchpefhir had her love- 
 letters and engagement-ring, her wedding presents 
 and her wedding tour, her honeymoon and begin- 
 ning of housekeeping in a new house of her own, 
 where she received calls, directed her garden, and 
 kept a diary until household cares crowded it out. 
 As for the love-letters, we have extracts from them 
 in a song, or rather a collection of poems, which Solo- 
 mon wrote. ' Rise up, my love, my fair one, and 
 come away,' pleads one of these letters ; ' for, lo ! the 
 winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers 
 appear in the earth, the time of the singing of birds 
 is come. Let me see thy countenance, let me hear 
 
278 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 thy voice ; for sweet is thy voice, and thy counte- 
 nance is comely. Arise, my love, my fair one, and 
 come away.' This must have been written to her in 
 Egypt, before ' the day of his espousals, in the day of 
 the gladness of his heart.' Perhaps it was sent on 
 Valentine's Day ; at any rate, it was in the glad 
 spring-time. And her wedding presents? Well, in 
 the first place, it was to be expected that Pharaoh 
 would give his daughter a handsome outfit. He 
 called out his troops, went up to Gezer of the Ca- 
 naanites, — a city on the frontiers of Palestine that 
 had been a continual trouble to the Israelites, — con- 
 quered it, and gave it to his daughter as a dowry city. 
 Solomon's present was a magnificent palace of costly 
 stones, with a ' Porch of Pillars,' that must have re- 
 minded her of the 1 Hall of Columns ' in the Egyptian 
 temple, where the capitals were of the drooping buds 
 of the lotus-lilies ; for here, too, 1 the chapiters that 
 were upon the top of the pillars were of lily-work.' 
 But the father and bridegroom were not the only 
 ones who gave wedding presents. Solomon's friends 
 greeted her upon her arrival, 'the daughter of Tyre' 
 was there with a gift, and the rich among the people 
 entreated her favor. Her jewels were very costly and 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 279 
 
 beautiful. Solomon writes of her : ' Thy neck is like 
 the tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon 
 there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty 
 men.' Does this remind you of the heavy necklaces 
 that ladies wear nowadays, from which are suspended 
 four or five lockets as heavy as padlocks ? Necklaces 
 not unlike these are found in the mummy-cases of 
 Egyptian ladies of rank, — golden bees or beetles or 
 grasshoppers, linked together by chains decorated with 
 gems, turquoise, carnelian, and lapis-lazuli. As far 
 back as the time of Isaac, Rebecca had her engage- 
 ment-ring, and it is not probable that Solomon forgot 
 so essential an item. Very likely, 
 however, instead of a trifling finger- 
 ring, Anchpefhir's was a bracelet 
 or armlet worn above the elbow, 
 of massive gold set with gems, and 
 containing a ' pozy ' or motto en- 
 graved inside, — perhaps this very 
 fragment from his love-poem : ' Set 
 me as a seal upon thine arm, for 
 love is strong as death.' The Queen 
 of Sheba, too, whom Anchpefhir 
 had known as the puzzle-loving Hindu girl, sent 
 
28o 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 many costly gifts, — among them, Arabian tradition 
 records, a thousand carpets wrought with gold and 
 silver. Perhaps they were spread upon the floors 
 of the bridal palace. The day Solomon conducted 
 Anchpefhir to her palace was a gala day in Jerusa- 
 lem ; but perhaps in the midst of the festivities, the 
 heart that beat under the glorious clothing of wrought 
 gold and raiment of needle-work was just a little 
 homesick. Her cheek would have turned pale, as 
 she thought of home and its inmates, had it not been 
 touched with some ancient rouge, for Solomon had 
 placed at her disposal ' all the powders of the mer- 
 chants.' At any rate, Solomon seems to have feared 
 that she might be unhappy. The greeting song 
 which he composed for the Sons of Korah to sing 
 as the bride entered her new home contained these 
 words : ' Forget also thine own people and thy father's 
 house. Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, 
 whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. 
 With gladness and rejoicing shall the virgins [her 
 companions] be brought; they shall enter into the 
 king's palace.' And well did he fulfil the promise 
 made upon that occasion : ' I will make thy name to 
 be remembered in all generations.' 'For all that came 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 281 
 
 into Solomon's heart to make, or to do,' — so says the 
 sacred chronicle, — ' he prosperously effected.' 
 
 " After the wedding and the honeymoon, came the 
 prosaic housekeeping in the palace, which we have 
 partly described. It was wainscoted with cedar; and 
 the lattice of sandal-wood, intricately carved in Orien- 
 tal arabesques, looked out upon Solomon's vast botan- 
 ical gardens. On their terraces grew every known 
 flower and fruit ; plashing fountains fell in basins 
 stocked with brilliant fish ; peacocks lazily spread 
 their magnificent fans upon the walls ; the impish 
 apes pelted each other with pomegranates and roses. 
 In his state chariot with silver pillars, golden floor, 
 and hangings of purple, drawn by graceful horses 
 that had once been Pharaoh's, Solomon came from 
 his ivory throne guarded by the twelve golden lions, 
 to write here his one thousand and five poems, his 
 three thousand proverbs, his botany, and his natural 
 history. No doubt they were very happy. But the 
 young bride must have passed some lonely evenings 
 while Solomon was away at the Masonic Lodge ; for 
 tradition says that he was a Master Mason, and had 
 taken all the degrees, from the simple craftsman to 
 the Knight Templar. Solomon's being a Mason had 
 
282 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 its good side, too, for of course his wife went to the 
 ball every St. John's Day ; besides, she could amuse 
 herself by dressing up in her husband's regalia when 
 she felt sure that he was not likely to come in upon 
 her suddenly. 
 
 " Even in her royal life that bugbear of modern 
 brides intruded itself, — the bore of receiving calls. 
 The curious Maqueda came from distant Sheba to 
 see if Solomon was the Prince Charmer of her 
 dreams. She failed to puzzle him with her enigmas, 
 or with the exploits which tradition says she de- 
 manded that he should perform. 
 
 " ' For he threaded the diamond, pierced the pearl, 
 And broke the heart of the Hindu girl.' 
 
 " The papyrus roll on which this diary of a princess 
 was written has been lost, like so many other valuable 
 papers. Perhaps Solomon caused this record of a 
 happy life to be buried with her, — laid with his love- 
 letters in her slender hand, that she might clasp them 
 to her heart in that long, last sleep. We do not know 
 when she died. We only know that Solomon in his 
 old age became cynical and bitter ; that he thought 
 the world had grown hollow ; he ceased writing love- 
 
THE PAPYRUS ROLL. 
 
 283 
 
 songs and devoted himself to sermons, whose burden 
 was, ' Vanity of vanities ! All is vanity.' Could life 
 have seemed so to him while he still 'lived joyfully 
 with the wife of his youth ' ? As a boy of twenty- 
 two he began his glorious reign, and Anchpefhir must 
 have died ere Solomon could have said that. Life for 
 him afterward was but vexation of spirit. Meantime 
 there was a revolution in Egypt. Pharaoh slept with 
 his fathers, little Psusenes dying too soon to feel the 
 crushing weight of an imperial crown. Shishack, the 
 son of the high-priest at Thebes, became King of 
 United Egypt. He remembered the slight which 
 Anchpefhir had given him in her marriage. In the 
 reign succeeding Solomon's he carried the horrors of 
 war into Palestine, besieging and taking Jerusalem, 
 and carrying away the treasures of the Lord's house 
 and of the king's house. With them, doubtless, went 
 the mummied form of Anchpefhir, to take her place 
 at last among the kings and queens of Egypt in one 
 of the mausoleums of Thebes. 
 
 "Ages have passed away since Solomon and Anch- 
 pefhir, Shishack and Maqueda, lived. As Solomon 
 himself wrote, ' Their love and their hatred and their 
 envy is now perished, and the memory of them is for- 
 
284 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 gotten.' Only short human lives, but by the magic 
 pencil of Art we are brought into close sympathy 
 with those who lived and loved as intensely as we 
 live and love now. ' Art is long, though time is fleet- 
 ing.' The parchments with Anchpefhir's cartouch, 
 or seal, have been stolen by some rifling hand, greedy 
 of the gold in Solomon's betrothal-ring which lay near 
 them ; but the paintings upon the mummy-case show 
 us to-day the picture of Anchpefhir, supported by 
 Truth, pleading her cause before Osiris the Judge. 
 Hathor pours for her the Water of Life. There is a 
 prayer, too, in the picture-language, which might be 
 translated thus : — 
 
 " 1 When her barge is brought to the Presence Divine, 
 May the Sun of Righteousness o'er her shine ! 
 And pour, O Hathor, bending near, 
 The Water of Life for Anchpefhir.' " 
 
PRUSSIAN BLUE. 
 
PRUSSIAN BLUE. 
 
 THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 OUR next freckle is just the 
 color of my father's socks," said 
 Flossy, as Tint mounted the 
 models stand for another conver- 
 sation, and then both she and 
 Ruby Rose laughed long and riotously. The occa- 
 sion of their mirth was one of Mamma Tangle- 
 skein's absences of mind which had resulted in Papa 
 Tangleskein's dark blue socks appearing on a very 
 public occasion. 
 
288 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Mamma Tangleskein was a fine singer, and she 
 had been asked to take part in an amateur concert, 
 given in behalf of some charity. Her part was a 
 prominent one, and she was very handsomely dressed 
 in a light silk dress trimmed with point-lace ; her 
 boots matched her costume exactly. As the night 
 was snowy she decided to protect them with a pair 
 of her husband's socks. It happened ludicrously 
 enough that with her slow process of thought she 
 had not arrived at the necessity of removing them 
 when her turn came to sing ; she consequently ap- 
 peared upon the stage in a substantial pair of blue 
 yarn stockings, with white heels and toes showing 
 conspicuously beneath the dainty lace-trimmed folds 
 of her silken robe. Fortunately the stage was not 
 a high one, and Mamma Tangleskein's feet were 
 visible only to those in the front seats, which were 
 nearly filled by the Tangleskeins and the Roses. 
 
 After Flossy's and Ruby's mirth had subsided, 
 Tint began his story. 
 
 " Albrecht Diirer Blumengarten," said he, " was 
 a decorator at the Dresden manufactory of porce- 
 lain. He was a tall, heavily made young man, with 
 a flowing golden beard. His face was decidedly 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 289 
 
 handsome, though the first impression which it gave 
 was not of beauty, but of absolute purity ; only clear 
 thoughts could be hidden behind that broad white 
 forehead, and those clear frank eyes. The impres- 
 
 of the credit for this virtue was due his mother, who 
 was his laundress. She was never happy unless 
 doing something for him ; whenever she found her- 
 self at leisure she gathered his shirts into a bundle, 
 and trudged away to the water-side, washing them 
 
2gO ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 there in one of the queer little houses by the river. 
 The good woman's life had been full of toil, but 
 Art had blossomed close beside her; she was happy 
 that her husband and son could live in a different 
 world from her own. She was a widow now; her 
 husband had been an engraver, loving Art with all 
 his soul, though he never passed beyond its mechan- 
 ical processes. The happiest era of his life came 
 one summer when he was at work engraving some 
 of the works of Germany's great master, Albrecht 
 Diirer. That summer his son was born, and he 
 gave him the great artist's name. The engravings 
 were pinned against the wall over the little table 
 where his son decorates the delicate Dresden ware. 
 One of the pictures is called The Knight and Death. 
 The knight is riding through a valley ; close beside 
 him rides the dreadful form of Death, with serpents 
 to represent its sting, twined in his hair. Ruskin 
 has given the following graphic description of the 
 group : — 
 
 " ' Death holds up the hour-glass, and looks earnestly in 
 the knight's face. Behind him follows Sin ; but Sin pow- 
 erless ; he has been conquered and passed by, but follows 
 still. Torn wings hang useless from his shoulders, and he 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 29 1 
 
 carries a spear with two hooks, for catching as well as 
 wounding. The knight does not heed him, nor even Death, 
 though he is conscious of the presence of the last. He 
 rides quietly, his bridle firm in his hand, and his lips set 
 close in a slight, sorrowful smile, for he hears what Death 
 is saying ; and hears it as the words of a messenger who 
 brings pleasant tidings, thinking to bring evil ones. A 
 little branch of delicate heath is twisted round his helmet. 
 His horse trots proudly and straight, its head high. But 
 the horse of Death stoops its head, and its rein catches the 
 little bell which hangs from the knight's horse-bridle, mak- 
 ing it toll as a passing bell.' 
 
 " Albrecht Durer Blumengarten knew the picture 
 by heart; to him it meant all that Ruskin describes 
 and a great deal more, for with his name he had 
 inherited the true artistic instinct. As a boy he 
 dreamt of being a great artist like Durer, but long 
 before he had completed his course of study the 
 father died, and he knew that he must wed his 
 talent to some industry that would support his 
 mother and little sisters. And so, thinking that if 
 Durer could bear to be apprenticed to a goldsmith, 
 Art could spare his poorer worship, he became a 
 china-decorator, spreading flowers in garlands on 
 beautiful vases, or strewing them in dainty sprigs 
 
292 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 on plates of almost transparent thinness. To many 
 a young man a position as decorator at the Dresden 
 Porcelain works would have seemed a niche suffi- 
 ciently high in the temple of Art, for the manufactory 
 had a glorious past, and numbered among its deco- 
 rations many copies of masterpieces of the Dutch 
 and French schools, hardly inferior in merit to the 
 originals themselves. In its palmy days, during the 
 early part of the eighteenth century, it was noted 
 among the nations for the excellence of its groups 
 and figures, for the delicacy of its lace patterns, 
 for clock-cases and vases exquisitely painted, and 
 candelabras that have never been equalled. But 
 the time when the manufactory excited the envy 
 of Napoleon and Frederick the Great had passed; 
 it was no longer alone, or even preeminent in its 
 work. Albrecht Blumengarten could not hope for 
 fame in his career, yet he did not have the appear- 
 ance of a disappointed man. ' There are some 
 things in life better than fame,' he said to himself, 
 and then he thanked God that He had given him 
 so flowery a path to tread. He hoped humbly that 
 the flowers which he painted might bring cheer and 
 happiness to other hearts. 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 293 
 
 " The flower he loved most and painted often- 
 est was the forget-me-not. It made him think of 
 Gretchen ; she was the gardeners daughter, and 
 stood each market-day before her cart in the platz, 
 tying up little love-knots, and 
 selling them to the passers-by. 
 There was always sure to be 
 just back of her small ear, where 
 the heavy yellow braid started yi 
 for its long plunge down her 
 curved neck and well formed 
 shoulders, and just above the 
 black velvet bodice, a little 
 cluster of forget-me-nots. The 
 flowers matched her eyes in 
 color, and in their expression 
 of wide-open innocence. Al- 
 brecht went often to Gretchen's 
 cart to select flowers to copy, 
 and whether he bought a double 
 handful, or was too critical to HI 
 be pleased, the knot of blue 
 flowers in Gretchen's bodice was usually trans- 
 ferred to the lapel of his coat, and he went away 
 
294 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 singing a little German song too sweet to be trans- 
 lated. They were not rich enough yet to be mar- 
 ried, but Albrecht worked steadily, and just now 
 there was a hope of increasing his earnings. The 
 Princess von Hochgebirge had visited the manu- 
 factory to purchase ornaments for a new hall in 
 her castle. She was very fastidious ; nothing suited 
 her highness ; she could not even be persuaded to 
 order from any models shown her. She wished 
 something unique, different from anything which 
 had hitherto appeared in the art ; and her visit 
 resulted in the offer of several prizes to the design- 
 ers and decorators for different specimens of work. 
 There was one premium for a fountain, to be placed 
 in the conservatory opening from the hall, another 
 for the clock candelabra and other mantel orna- 
 ments, and still another for two large vases. The 
 work was to be finished in two years. Albrecht 
 determined to try for the first premium, the one 
 offered for the fountain. He modelled the figure 
 of a fisher-boy crouching beneath a rock, as though 
 taking refuge beneath it from the rain, which was 
 to be represented by the falling spray ; one hand 
 grasped his fishing-rod, and the figure was bent nearly 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 295 
 
 to the surface of the water, into whose depths he 
 seemed cautiously peering, expressing intense inter- 
 est. ' They will probably have goldfish in the ba- 
 sin,' thought Albrecht, ' and that will help carry 
 out the illusion.' The figure was just completed 
 when the Franco-Prussian war broke out. Albrecht 
 had little interest in the quarrel, and no heart for 
 fighting; his heart was in his work. Just now, 
 more than ever, he did not wish to be interrupted 
 in it. No one knew how long the war would last, 
 whether he could return in time to finish his foun- 
 tain, or whether indeed, if he went, he would ever 
 return at all. He* was not absolutely obliged to go, 
 and yet Albrecht felt that honor and duty to his 
 country called him. It was a hard struggle ; perhaps 
 he would not have gone at all, the thought of death, 
 and what it meant to him in the loss of Gretchen, 
 was so terrible. But the Durer picture hung before 
 him as he sat at his work-table ; the brave knight 
 riding resolutely onward alone with Death, the ugly 
 temptation conquered and passed by. ' No matter,' 
 he said to himself, ' if it is Death who is calling 
 me to the long march, since honor goes with 
 me.' But the parting with Gretchen was harder 
 
296 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 than he had thought, though the dear girl was very 
 brave and calm. ' When I think of you,' he said, 
 on the day that his regiment marched away, ' I am 
 
 army had encircled Paris. The time for action 
 seemed over ; there was nothing to do but to wait 
 until the city should be starved into surrender. 
 Albrecht commanded a small detachment at Sevres, 
 near Paris ; he found much here to interest and 
 instruct him, and spent these hours of enforced 
 idleness, as far as opportunity offered, in a study 
 of French porcelain. 
 
 almost tempted to desert.' 
 
 " ' The thought of me should 
 make you stronger to do your 
 duty,' she replied; 'and if 
 you are ever tempted into 
 doing any wrong or shame- 
 ful thing, I shall know that 
 you have forgotten me en- 
 tirely.' 
 
 " And Albrecht Diirer Blu- 
 mengarten did do his duty, 
 and was twice promoted for 
 gallantry upon the field of 
 battle. The great German 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 297 
 
 " Fifine, the inn-waitress, soon found that he never 
 cared if the omelette was poor or the soup cold, if 
 only it was served to him from a plate of old Rouen 
 faience, whose design, of questionable merit and glar- 
 ing color, had never been presented to him before. 
 
 " ' Monsieur is fond of porcelain ? ' Fifine remarked 
 one day; 'he should see the beautiful things there 
 used to be at the castle of Montmorency, where my 
 grandmother was 
 a servant ; it was 
 she who told me 
 about them. 
 There were great 
 platters which I 
 should not like to 
 have eaten from, 
 for they seemed, so my grandmother said, more like 
 lakes and pools than Christian dishes ; in the cen- 
 tre there would be a lump like a rock, and on it 
 lizards or salamanders sunning themselves; frogs 
 squatted upon the margin, as on the bank of a 
 stream, just ready to jump, as though frightened 
 by some school-boy ; there were even snakes coiled 
 up asleep; between the margin and the rock you 
 
298 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 would almost think there was running water, the 
 eels wriggled so, the bright speckled trout glanced, 
 and a wary carp or so was lurking under the 
 shadow of the rock. How is it possible that one 
 should enjoy such things? and yet the great peo- 
 ple thought them very fine.' 
 
 " ' What artist made these plates ? ' asked Albrecht. 
 
 " ' How should I know,' replied the girl ; ' it was 
 some one away back in the time of the first duke ; 
 he came and lived awhile at the castle, for there 
 are not only the dishes for the table service, but 
 also a pavement in tiles, and a grotto in the gar- 
 den, where all kinds of fish — lampreys, turbots, 
 soles, rays, salmon, cray-fish, anchovy, and, for aught 
 I know, sardines and shrimp — were modelled in por- 
 celain, and placed under the water. The grotto 
 itself was filled with a vine, whose leaves and fruit 
 and branches, and the birds flying within them, were 
 all of the same material.' 
 
 " ' This could have been the work of but one 
 man,' said Albrecht, thoughtfully, ' Palissy, the art- 
 ist naturalist ; ' and then he fell to thinking of his 
 unfinished fountain. 
 
 " At Sevres, where Albrecht was stationed, are 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 299 
 
 the French porcelain works, connected with which 
 there was a museum in which Albrecht spent 
 much of his leisure time, studying the different 
 models and making careful drawings. In one of 
 the deserted rooms, formerly occupied by designers 
 for the establishment, he found a series of photo- 
 graphs of the charming figures known as Raphael's 
 Hours, and supposed to have been painted for a 
 room in the Vatican. Albrecht had never hap- 
 pened to see these figures before, and he was so 
 much struck by them that he determined to try 
 for the prize offered for a porcelain clock-case as 
 well as for the fountain. The clock should be in 
 the style of the Renaissance, decorated with these 
 little figures. He made careful drawings and sketches 
 in color which he sewed into the lining of his coat ; 
 night and day he dreamed of nothing but the 
 'Hours;' sweet, serious Midnight with her owl, 
 joyous Morn scattering dew and sunshine, languid 
 glorious Noon, timid Evening with her flitting bat 
 and all their lovely sisterhood, — there should never 
 be a clock like his clock. 
 
 " The discipline existing in the Prussian army in 
 regard to acts of vandalism and pillage was not as 
 
300 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 strict as it might have been ; many beautiful and 
 artistic objects were wantonly destroyed or carried 
 away by officers and men. As Albrecht strolled 
 through the ruined works one 
 evening he was startled by the 
 sound of loud voices and crash- 
 ing blows proceeding from a 
 work-shop whose entrance had 
 been hitherto concealed be- 
 neath a pile of debris. He 
 entered, and found some of 
 his own men breaking quan- 
 tities of undecorated porcelain, 
 
 which had been stored there. He put an imme- 
 diate stop to the work of destruction, and reported 
 his discovery of the room at headquarters. A supe- 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 301 
 
 rior officer inspected it, and gave it as his opinion that 
 there was nothing in the room worth confiscation, 
 and that the men might as well have been allowed to 
 amuse themselves. ' If there is anything here that 
 you would like to carry back to Germany, and can 
 find the means of transportation, you are at liberty 
 to take it,' were his parting words as he left Al- 
 brecht alone in the work-shop. Very carefully the 
 latter examined shelf after shelf of the fine porcelain. 
 There were dinner-sets of two hundred and three 
 hundred pieces, which he longed to decorate, and 
 vases of graceful shape and large size ; but he saw 
 nothing to excite more than common admiration 
 until he came upon a series of platters and basins. 
 One of them, three or four feet long, only waited the 
 artist's brush to realize Fifine's description of the 
 Palissy grotto. It was filled with fish and reptilian 
 forms beautifully modelled, and must have been a 
 reproduction of some authentic design of Palissy's. 
 During the remainder of Albrecht's stay he devoted 
 himself to coloring these fish with tints suggested by 
 his imagination, his knowledge of nature, and study 
 of models in the museum. He found colors in an- 
 other part of the manufactory, and shut himself 
 
302 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 into the little room when he was at liberty to do 
 so, nailing upon the door an order, which he per- 
 suaded his general to sign, that he should not be 
 disturbed. At length the war was over, and the 
 Prussian troops were recalled. Notwithstanding the 
 permission of his commander, Albrecht did not carry 
 off a single article ; he left a letter in the beautiful 
 basin begging pardon for his attempt at decorating 
 it, and marched away. On his arrival at home he 
 set himself seriously to work on the clock-case, which 
 he succeeded in completing a few days before the 
 expiration of the time set by the princess. It was 
 a remarkably beautiful object ; the friends to whom 
 he showed it felt that it was sure of the prize. ' 
 
 " But the fountain ! He placed his fisher-lad be- 
 fore him, and wished that he had more time ; he 
 might possibly reproduce from memory the won- 
 derful Palissy basin, over the centre of which the 
 little fisher could be placed, and the fountain would 
 be complete. The time was too short; he could 
 only compete for the clock. As he sadly returned 
 the incomplete fountain to its wrappings, a letter 
 was handed him from a member of the committee 
 of managers of the Sevres Works, thanking him 
 
THE CLOCK AND THE FOUNTAIN. 303 
 
 for his preservation of the porcelain, and praising 
 his decoration of the Palissy basin. The writer 
 stated that if the manufactory were as prosperous 
 as in its former days, the managers would never 
 suffer such a fine piece of ornamentation to go out 
 of their hands, but in their present impoverished 
 condition they could not offer him a price at all 
 commensurate with its worth. The letter ended by 
 begging him to accept the basin as a mark of the 
 managers' gratitude for his services in preserving to 
 them so much valuable work. The basin arrived 
 shortly after by express. The fisher-lad seemed to 
 have been made expressly for it, and peered over his 
 • rock absorbed by the fishes beneath. Both foun- 
 tain and clock took the premiums offered by the 
 Princess Von Hochgebirge, and the money received 
 by Albrecht was sufficient to warrant his immediate 
 marriage with Gretchen. The picture occupying 
 the place of honor in their little home is Diirer's 
 Knight and Death. ' If it had not been for that 
 picture,' says Albrecht, ' perhaps I should never have 
 dared to give up Hope for Duty.' " 
 
IVORY BLACK. 
 
IVORY BLACK. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE TALES. 
 
 UST one year from the time 
 that Tint had told the chil- 
 dren their first story, Flossy 
 and Ruby sat together in the 
 studio. The children felt sad, 
 for they were soon to be 
 parted. Ruby was going to 
 Europe for a year, with his 
 father and mother. 
 
 " And now," said Flossy, " we 
 shall never see the Paint Bogies again ; " as she 
 spoke, Ruby repeated the mystic incantation, and 
 Tint appeared. 
 
 " You are quite right," he said to Flossy ; " Car- 
 rie and I will come no more to tell you stories 
 of pictures and artists; but where Ruby goes he 
 will find another Art Bogy, much older than I, who 
 
308 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 began life when Adam and Eve were expelled from 
 the Garden of Eden, and who can consequently tell 
 you stories from the very beginning of the human 
 race. The old adage, that 'walls have ears,' is truer 
 than most people know, for there is not a house 
 or building of any kind that is not haunted by the 
 Bogy of Architecture. He crouches by the water- 
 spout just under the eaves, and hears everything 
 that is said within the house ; that is why people 
 who listen at doors and windows are called eaves- 
 droppers. You will find him if you look sharply 
 as you walk under the walls of old castles and 
 cathedrals, and he will tell you stories more inter- 
 esting than mine have been." 
 
 " That is all very nice for Ruby," said Flossy, 
 disconsolately ; " but what am I to do ? " 
 
 " O, whenever I meet the old goblin, and he tells 
 me a story, I '11 write it down and send it to you," 
 said Ruby, gallantly. He kept his word, so that 
 all of the little people who care can have the sto- 
 ries that the Bogy of Architecture told, for their 
 next Christmas present. 
 
 " Tint," said Flossy, persuasively, " can't we have 
 one more of your stories before we part ? There is 
 one more color left on the palette." 
 
THE LAST OF THE TALES. 
 
 309 
 
 " Only an ugly blot of black ; the palette would 
 be far gayer and brighter without it ; but the palette 
 is only a symbol of life, my dears, and there is no 
 life without its blot. In some it is so small a speck 
 as to be almost imperceptible, and in others spread- 
 ing over and obscuring all the more attractive col- 
 ors. Do you know that you youngsters are artists ? 
 You paint a picture every day of your lives, destined 
 to hang at last in a great gallery." 
 
 " No," replied Ruby, " I did n't know it. Is the 
 gallery anything like Memorial Hall at the Centen- 
 nial ? I never thought I could paint anything fit 
 to hang there, though father did say he believed 
 that with a shoe-brush and a brush of whitewash 
 I could do better work than some he saw there." 
 
 " I don't think," exclaimed Flossy, eagerly, " that 
 it makes much difference whether the picture is 
 good or bad, if you only have some one smart 
 enough to guess what was meant, and make believe 
 see things in it. You remember how one of the 
 Art students at the museum told Grandma Tangle- 
 skein that Turner's Slave-Ship was a picture of a 
 yellow cat going into fits in a bowl of tomato soup, 
 and she believed it ; the cat had the most ferocious 
 
ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 eyes she ever saw, she said; but it really seemed 
 to her that its tail was too long." 
 
 " I see you don't understand me," said Tint, 
 gravely ; " the pictures which you paint every day 
 are word-pictures and deed-pictures. They will hang 
 in a hall called Memory, but not like Memorial 
 Hall in Philadelphia, where the spectators elbowed 
 their way only once, without even glancing at half 
 of the pictures. You must each of you live for- 
 ever in this Hall of Memory, with the pictures 
 which you have made staring down upon you, 
 whether you like the looks of them or not. Some 
 persons who have not acted as they should, and 
 do not like to face their naughty deeds, hang rich 
 broidered curtains of Pride before them, and en- 
 courage spiders to weave their webs of Forgetful- 
 ness across the paintings. But there is a strong 
 wind, called Conscience, which blows the silken 
 concealers' aside, showing the picture in all its Mack 
 hideousness. You have not painted much yet, lit- 
 tle folks; be careful how you choose your colors 
 from the palette of life. Take white, which means 
 purity ; green, hope and victory ; yellow, fruitful- 
 ness ; red, love ; blue, truth ; or brown, endurance ; 
 
THE LAST OF THE TALES. 
 
 311 
 
 but do not once dip your brush in the black paint, 
 called sin." 
 
 " Now see here, Tint," said Ruby, in a tone of 
 expostulation, " you are n't going to end up with a 
 sermon, are you ? Because I hate stories with mor- 
 als, and this afternoon it seems to me that it's all 
 moral and no story." 
 
 " I see you don't wish to hear any more from me," 
 replied Tint, in 
 an injured man- 
 ner. "Very- 
 well, that paint- 
 ing on your 
 father's easel 
 will give you 
 the thought I 
 wished to con- 
 vey in a story, 
 and that is bet- 
 ter than to tie 
 it on to the end 
 — Farewell ? " 
 With a fearful 
 
 snap, Tint collapsed for the last time. 
 
312 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 The painting which he had indicated was a por- 
 trait of an old negro who had come to whitewash 
 Mrs. Rose's kitchen. Mr. Rose watched him through 
 an open door, and had stolen his portrait without 
 ever allowing the old man to suspect that he was 
 being painted. 
 
 " How sad his eyes look," said Flossy, gazing at 
 the picture. " I wonder if he does not get tired 
 holding that brush. What are you trying to make 
 so very white, poor old man ? " 
 
 To the children's surprise, the picture, thus ad- 
 dressed, replied in clear tones, — 
 
 " I 'se tryin' to brush out a sin, miss, 
 
 Dat keeps 'trudin' itself on my sight. 
 It's dar, and as brack now as ebber, 
 
 Dough I pile on a mountain ob white. 
 And dough it 's a mis'able story, 
 
 Ef it keeps yo' from sin an' from pain, 
 From doin' somet'ing you 'd be 'shamed ob, 
 
 Dis yere chile has n't lib'd quite in vain. 
 Your heart may be brack as my face is, 
 
 Dough yore han's day be ibory white, 
 An' nuffin' ain't settled for sartin' — 
 
 Nuffin', miss, dat ain't fust settled right. 
 Fo' de wah, on Ole Massa's plantation 
 
 We was dat bad afflicted wid rats, 
 Dey ate up each pore niggah's ration, 
 
THE LAST OF THE TALES. 
 
 313 
 
 An' cley chewed off de heads of de cats. 
 'No use in our stannin' sech nonsense,' 
 
 Says Ole Massa. ' You '11 see dat I won't ; 
 So, boys, you is scused from all labor 
 
 To debark for fo' days in a hunt. 
 An' dat one dat kills de mos' varmints, 
 
 An' counts dar tails out onto me, 
 Shall hab a big keg of merlasses, 
 
 Besides freedom to work hisseffree.' 
 You nebber seed no sech excitement, 
 
 Ebery one ob us jined in de race ; 
 Befo' dem ar fo' days was ober, 
 
 Dar wa'n't nebber a rat on de place. 
 Not one ob us cahed for his freedom. 
 
 (I is 'shamed ob us, but it 's de troof.) 
 Merlasses, too, ain't to be slighted, 
 
 You will 'gree if you'se got a sweet toof. 
 Now Bill 'd been my friend sence as babies 
 
 We each teached one anudder to creep. 
 Well, I ob de tails had a right smart, 
 
 But dat Bill in a box had a heap. 
 He 'd won de keg sho' as taxation, 
 
 But I stole to his house like a fox 
 De morn ob de count, an' jus' tink, miss, 
 
 I was mean 'nuff to scoot wid his box! 
 But when I was 'clared for de winner, 
 
 I did feel mos' oncommonly beat 
 (It did n't quite spile dat merlasses, 
 
 For dough sin is sin, suggah 's sweet.) 
 But sence dat I 'se sot wid de mourners, 
 
 An' shed tears 'nuff to fill all de pails 
 
3H 
 
 ALL AROUND A PALETTE. 
 
 Ob whitewash I ebber has mixed, miss, 
 But I can't quite wash out dem ar tails." 
 
 The moral 's hard to discover ? 
 
 Then our palette-talk naught avails : 
 
 At last, of rats and of colors 
 
 i 
 
 We have reached the 
 
 Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
 End of the Tales. 
 
I