Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/144

 man, heartily; and would make a present to her—though I knew he could ill afford it—of a little black fan on which he had just painted with much grace and truthfulness a group of white and purple violets.

The old woman looked up sharply through her spectacles, and said nothing.

"What will she care for it?—it is not jewelled and gilded," she muttered, as she went on with her spinning in the doorway in the sun.

I have often wondered since how it is that the eyes of women at a glance read the souls of other women, so cruelly, as it seems to us, and yet so surely.

It was a pretty little fan: it had cost him much labour, though it could only have sold for a franc or two. It was a plaything as graceful as if it had been encrusted with diamonds—more so, I think, for the old man had studied the forest flowers till he could portray them to the very life.

But a few days later the kindly little gift was lost: she dropped it from the balcony, and it fell shivered to atoms on the ground.

I reproached her gently for her carelessness.

"To give thee the fan," I urged, "he will, I know well, have to go for many a day without a bit of