amusing turn. This, it is true, was when the master of the house was
free from his terrible enemy, the headache, which laid him low so often,
and which in these days became more and more frequent.

[Illustration: FIRST STEPS. FROM A PASTEL BY JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. As Sensier remarks,
Millet, with nine children, had abundant opportunity to study them. This
charming drawing was one of the collection of Millet's pastels formed by
M. Gavet, which was unfortunately dispersed by auction soon after the
artist's death.]

The house, to resume the description of Millet's home, went back at
right angles from the street, and contained the various apartments of
the family, many of them on the ground floor, and all of the most modest
character. It was a source of wonder how so large a family could inhabit
so small a house. The garden lay in front, and extended back of the
house. A high wall with a little door, painted green, by which you
entered, ran along the street, and ended at the studio, which was, like
the dining-room, on the street. The garden was pleasant with flowers and
trees, the kitchen garden being at the rear. But a few short years ago,
within its walls Madame Millet plucked a red rose, and gave it to me,
saying: "My husband planted this." Outside the little green door, on
either hand, were stone benches set against the wall, on which the
painter's children sometimes sat and played; but it is somewhat strange
that I never remember Millet at his door or on the village street. He
walked a great deal, but always went out of the garden to the fields
back of the house, and from there gained the forest or the plain. Among
the young painters who frequented Barbizon in those days (which were,
however, long after the time when the men of Millet's age established