floor.




IV

It was a gay scene over at the art school next morning. Even before the
accustomed hour the big barnlike room, with a few prize pictures of
former classes scattered about the walls, and with the old academy
easels standing about like a caravan of patient camels ever loaded with
new burdens but ever traveling the same ancient sands of art--even
before nine o'clock the barnlike room presented a scene of eager healthy
animal spirits. On the easel of every youthful worker, nearly finished,
lay the portrait of the mother. In every case it had been differently
done, inadequately done; but in all cases it had been done. Hardly could
any observer have failed to recognize what was there depicted. Beyond
smearings and daubings of paint, as past the edges of concealing clouds,
one caught glimpses of a serene and steadfast human radiance. There one
beheld the familiar image of that orb which in dark and pathless hours
has through all ages been the guardian light of the world--the mother.

The best in them had gone into the painting of this portrait, and the
consciousness of our best gives us the sense of our power, and the
consciousness of our power yields us our enthusiasm; hence the
exhilaration and energy of the studio scene.

The interest of the members of the class was not concerned solely with
the portrait, however: a larger share went to the model herself. They
had become strongly bound to her. All the more perhaps because she held