"'He is just as dear to me as a brother,' she laughed. 'I should be
finely ungrateful if I felt no friendship for him. Didn't he teach me
music and drawing and grammar, and everything I know in fact? You
don't much notice how I get on, dear mother; but I shall know enough,
in a while, to give lessons myself, and then we can keep a servant.'
"I stole away softly, made some noise outside, and went into their
room to take the lamp, that Pauline tried to light for me. The dear
child had just poured soothing balm into my wounds. Her outspoken
admiration had given me fresh courage. I so needed to believe in
myself and to come by a just estimate of my advantages. This revival
of hope in me perhaps colored my surroundings. Perhaps also I had
never before really looked at the picture that so often met my eyes,
of the two women in their room; it was a scene such as Flemish
painters have reproduced so faithfully for us, that I admired in its
delightful reality. The mother, with the kind smile upon her lips,
sat knitting stockings by the dying fire; Pauline was painting
hand-screens, her brushes and paints, strewn over the tiny table,
made bright spots of color for the eye to dwell on. When she had left
her seat and stood lighting my lamp, one must have been under the
yoke of a terrible passion indeed, not to admire her faintly flushed
transparent hands, the girlish charm of her attitude, the ideal grace
of her head, as the lamplight fell full on her pale face.
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