"I shall be delighted: I am so curious to see those eccentric--" Here
a warning glance from Afra stopped me.

But the lady only laughed and said, "You will see eccentricity enough
to-morrow, if that is what you want. People who devote their minds to
great objects have no time to think of little things. You had better
see that Afra has on her bonnet or she will go without one."

"Nonsense!" replied Afra.--"Miss," this to the owner of the studio,
who was so called in honor of her English birth, "are you ever
troubled by the ghost of that young painter who hung himself up
there?"

"Those who have occasion to commit suicide are not likely to come
back: they have had enough of this world," said the Englishwoman.

"Did some one really die here?" I asked.

"Yes, really;" and Afra mimicked my tone of horror. "You know, a
Bohemian is at home anywhere, so a change of country don't affect him
much. If we find a place disagreeable, we travel."

"Was he insane?"

"Not more than the rest of us, but _you_ can't understand the feeling
that would induce a man to do such a thing. This young fellow painted
a picture: he put his mind, his soul, himself, into it, and sent it to
the Exhibition. It was rejected--that is, he was rejected--and he came
here and died. They found him suspended from that beam where the lamps
hang now."