an artist's head!

At the moment when this history begins, a brilliant July sun was
illuminating the studio, and two rays striking athwart it lengthwise,
traced diaphanous gold lines in which the dust was shimmering. A dozen
easels raised their sharp points like masts in a port. Several young
girls were animating the scene by the variety of their expressions,
their attitudes, and the differences in their toilets. The strong
shadows cast by the green serge curtains, arranged according to the
needs of each easel, produced a multitude of contrasts, and the
piquant effects of light and shade. This group was the prettiest of
all the pictures in the studio.

A fair young girl, very simply dressed, sat at some distance from her
companions, working bravely and seeming to be in dread of some mishap.
No one looked at her, or spoke to her; she was much the prettiest, the
most modest, and, apparently, the least rich among them. Two principal
groups, distinctly separated from each other, showed the presence of
two sets or cliques, two minds even here, in this studio, where one
might suppose that rank and fortune would be forgotten.

But, however that might be, these young girls, sitting or standing, in
the midst of their color-boxes, playing with their brushes or
preparing them, handling their dazzling palettes, painting, laughing,
talking, singing, absolutely natural, and exhibiting their real
selves, composed a spectacle unknown to man. One of them, proud,
haughty, capricious, with black hair and beautiful hands, was casting
the flame of her glance here and there at random; another,
light-hearted and gay, a smile upon her lips, with chestnut hair and
delicate white hands, was a typical French virgin, thoughtless, and