LUXEMBOURG GALLERY, PARIS.

Delightful for a sense of air through the cool and spacious room, and
for the sculpturesque solidity of the group composed of the woman, the
churn, and the cat.]

"And you have not seen it since you were a boy?" I asked.

"No; but it all comes back to me as I work," was his answer.

From picture to picture, from question to kindly answer, the afternoon
sped, and at length, in response to a question as to the relative
importance of subject, the painter sent his son into the house whence he
returned with a panel a few inches square. The father took it, wiped the
dust from it, absent-mindedly, on his sleeve, with a half caressing
movement, and placed it on the easel. "_Voila!_ (There!)" was all
he said. The panel represented three golden juicy pears, their fat sides
relieved one against the other, forming a compact group which, through
the magic of color, told of autumn sun, and almost gave the odor of
ripened fruit. It was a lovely bit of painting, and much interested, I
said: "Pardon me, but you seem as much or more proud of this than
anything you have shown."

"Exactly," answered Millet, with an amused smile at my eagerness.
"Everything in nature is good to paint, and the painter's business is to
be occupied with his manner of rendering it. These pears, a man or a
woman, a flock of sheep, all have the same qualities for a painter.
There are," with a gesture of his hands to make his meaning clear,
"things that lie flat, that are horizontal, like a plain; and there are
others which stand up, are perpendicular; and there are the planes