treasure, which, if triumphant, would build him his first step toward
independence and the mysteries of the art which he blindly, ignorantly,
and yet passionately adored.

He said nothing to any one: his grandfather would not have understood, and
little Alois was lost to him. Only to Patrasche he told all, and
whispered, "Rubens would give it me, I think, if he knew."

Patrasche thought so too, for he knew that Rubens had loved dogs or he had
never painted them with such exquisite fidelity; and men who loved dogs
were, as Patrasche knew, always pitiful.

The drawings were to go in on the first day of December, and the decision
be given on the twenty-fourth, so that he who should win might rejoice
with all his people at the Christmas season.

In the twilight of a bitter wintry day, and with a beating heart, now
quick with hope, now faint with fear, Nello placed the great picture on
his little green milk-cart, and took it, with the help of Patrasche, into
the town, and there left it, as enjoined, at the doors of a public
building.

"Perhaps it is worth nothing at all. How can I tell?" he thought, with the
heart-sickness of a great timidity. Now that he had left it there, it
seemed to him so hazardous, so vain, so foolish, to dream that he, a
little lad with bare feet, who barely knew his letters, could do anything
at which great painters, real artists, could ever deign to look. Yet he
took heart as he went by the cathedral: the lordly form of Rubens seemed
to rise from the fog and the darkness, and to loom in its magnificence
before him, whilst the lips, with their kindly smile, seemed to him to