"And she colored up as though she had given utterance to words
extremely audacious.

"I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had
commenced a large picture.

"She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with
concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that
she was disturbing me, she said to me: 'Thank you,' and walked
away.

"But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me
every day, her countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She
carried her folding stool under her arm; would not consent to my
carrying it, and she sat always by my side. She would remain
there for hours immovable and mute, following with her eye the
point of my brush in its every movement. When I would obtain, by
a large splatch of color spread on with a knife, a striking and
unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a
half-suppressed 'Oh!' of astonishment, of joy, of admiration. She
had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious
respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature's work
divine. My studies appeared to her to be pictures of sanctity,
and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting
me.

"Oh! He was a queer good-natured being, this God of hers. He was
a sort of village philosopher without any great resources, and
without great power; for she always figured him to herself as a
being quivering over injustices committed under his eyes, and