Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/257

Rh her heart with sunshine and flowers, so no knowledge could satiate her soul. When she was not drinking in nature or reproducing it in the wonderful tapestry-like embroidery, she was absorbed in study.

"Only think, Will!" Jim wrote in one of his letters. "Dominie has begun to teach Ally Hebrew. She begged so hard that he could not refuse her, and Ally says she likes it better than Greek; it is so much grander. Dominie says he has never had a pupil who learns languages as Ally does. She has intuitions about them just as she does about other things, and she never forgets."

Again he wrote: "Ally's flowers grow more and more wonderful. I only wish you could see the panels she has made for the corner cupboards in the sitting-room! You 'd never know the old room. It is a perfect picture-gallery. I brought one of her pieces up to town last week, and the artists all say it is one of the most beautiful things ever seen in America, and entirely unique in its way. One of the fellows made me so angry. 'Why,' said he, 'this young lady could make thousands of dollars if she would put these things in the market. They would command any price for draperies of rooms or panels in doors.' Fancy Ally! I said very coldly that luckily this young lady was in no need of earning money, and the man had the impudence to say that it was not luckily at all; that art would be advanced if such works were