"No; you fly from me, and draw. I will rejoin you in a few minutes."

"Thank you, I'm not so stupid. You will step indoors directly."

"Do you doubt my word, sir?" asked she haughtily.

He had learned to obey all her caprices; so he went and placed himself
on the west side of the oak and took out his sketch-book, and worked
zealously and rapidly. He had done the outlines of the tree and was
finishing in detail a part of the huge trunk, when his eyes were
suddenly dazzled: in the middle of the rugged bark, deformed here and
there with great wart-like bosses, and wrinkled, seamed, and ploughed
all over with age, burst a bit of variegated color; bright as a poppy on
a dungeon wall, it glowed and glittered out through a large hole in the
brown bark; it was Rose's face peeping. To our young lover's eye how
divine it shone! None of the half tints of common flesh were there,
but a thing all rose, lily, sapphire, and soul. His pencil dropped, his
mouth opened, he was downright dazzled by the glowing, bewitching face,
sparkling with fun, in the gaunt tree. Tell me, ladies, did she know,
even at that age, the value of that sombre frame to her brightness? The
moment she found herself detected, the gaunt old tree rang musical with
a crystal laugh, and out came the arch-dryad. "I have been there all the
time. How solemn you looked! Now for the result of such profound study."
He showed her his work; she altered her tone. "Oh, how clever!" she
cried, "and how rapid! What a facility you have! Monsieur is an artist,"
said she gravely; "I will be more respectful," and she dropped him a low
courtesy. "Mind you promised it me," she added sharply.

"You will accept it, then?"