commenced painting on canvas.

This information was conveyed to me at the first favorable opportunity,
and when Louis enjoined secrecy upon me, he expressed great pleasure
with Mr. Benton, and said:

"Oh! Miss Emily. Little mother is so beautiful; she is always a picture.
When the artist adds to the charming portrait the dress and the little
pearls she wore to receive me, it will be so real I shall want to ask it
to speak to me, and when she leaves me I can look at it, and in my heart
hear her say 'Louis my dear boy.' You love her very much, do you not,
Emily?"

"Oh, Louis!" I cried, "do not talk so, everybody says she is too good
and beautiful to live, and it is a thought too bitter, I cannot bear
it."

He turned the conversation into another channel, and talked so strongly
about his great desire to master this art of painting, while I wondered
to myself how it had happened that these hearts were gathered to our
own and had become members of our household, coming, as they did, like
rare exotics, to live and blossom among us plain hollyhocks and
dandelions. Hal I could liken to a rare flower, but then he was only one
among our number, and in all our family and friends there were none
possessing the gifts of these two souls which had come to us so
strangely.

Aunt Hildy said, "The ways of life are past all comprehending." I
thought so too. Christmas came on Sunday in this year of our Lord
eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, and for this I rejoiced and was glad.