enter the presence of the master to whom we owe our admirable portrait
of Henry IV., if chance had not thrown an unexpected assistance in his
way. An old man mounted the spiral stairway. The oddity of his dress,
the magnificence of his lace ruffles, the solid assurance of his
deliberate step, led the youth to assume that this remarkable
personage must be the patron, or at least the intimate friend, of the
painter. He drew back into a corner of the landing and made room for
the new-comer; looking at him attentively and hoping to find either
the frank good-nature of the artistic temperament, or the serviceable
disposition of those who promote the arts. But on the contrary he
fancied he saw something diabolical in the expression of the old man's
face,--something, I know not what, which has the quality of alluring
the artistic mind.

Imagine a bald head, the brow full and prominent and falling with deep
projection over a little flattened nose turned up at the end like the
noses of Rabelais and Socrates; a laughing, wrinkled mouth; a short
chin boldly chiselled and garnished with a gray beard cut into a
point; sea-green eyes, faded perhaps by age, but whose pupils,
contrasting with the pearl-white balls on which they floated, cast at
times magnetic glances of anger or enthusiasm. The face in other
respects was singularly withered and worn by the weariness of old age,
and still more, it would seem, by the action of thoughts which had
undermined both soul and body. The eyes had lost their lashes, and the
eyebrows were scarcely traced along the projecting arches where they
belonged. Imagine such a head upon a lean and feeble body, surround it
with lace of dazzling whiteness worked in meshes like a fish-slice,
festoon the black velvet doublet of the old man with a heavy gold
chain, and you will have a faint idea of the exterior of this strange
individual, to whose appearance the dusky light of the landing lent