Virgin. And beyond the church and the mass of sorrowing, suffering human
life at its doors was the great River St. Lawrence, a molten silver
stream glimmering with a million iridescent lights, flowing swiftly,
silently on.

Far across its broad expanse, in the dim distance, like huge clouds, were
the misty blue Laurentian hills, grand, eternal, steadfast, an emblem of
Omnipotence itself.

"Where is the painter of this masterpiece?" asked one; and a friend of
his, a Royal Academician of some standing, replied:

"Oh! Lacroix has just come in. The prince admired 'The Pilgrimage' and
inquired for the artist, so the president sent for him. The prince was
most affable to him, and, it is said, has bought the picture. Ah! there
is Lacroix now. Wait a moment and I will bring him over here."

Presently he returned with Lacroix, who was enthusiastically received by
his fellow artists, and congratulated heartily on his success. Lacroix
was a tall, rather uncouth-looking man of between thirty-five and forty,
and his face wore a stern, care-worn expression. But, to an observer who
cared to study his countenance, over the stern gravity of the artist's
face there was often a gleam of pleasing expression, more particularly
when lighted up by one of his rare smiles. To-day he did not seem very
much elated by his success; rather the contrary. Success had come to
Lacroix too late in life for him to have any very jubilant feeling about
it. It seemed that he had long out-lived his youth, its hopes and
ambitions. Work was what he lived for now, work and his art; if success
followed, well and good; if not, he did not much care.