Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/444

 a frown, or a shadow of reproachful sadness, on the picture of a once loving and approving face is the hardest bitterness to bide, the self-unsparing wanderer can know. Therefore I would fain let these faces be turned from me,--all save one, a merry minx of maidenhood, of careless heart, and laughing lips, and somewhat naughty eyes. It was a steel engraving, not of the finest, torn from some Book of Beauty, or other silly-sentimental keepsake of the literary catch-penny class, brought all the way from home, and tenderly saved for the sake of its strange by-chance resemblance to a smart little _lionne_ I had known in Virginia, in the days when smart little _lionnes_ made me a sort of puppy Cumming. The picture, unframed, and exposed to all the chances of rough travel, had partaken of my share of foul weather and coarse handling, and been spotted and smutched, and creased and torn, and every way defaced. I had often wished that I might have a pretty painting made from it, before it should be spoiled past copying. So here, I thought, shall be my introduction to my fly-in-amber artist, of the seedy tent and the romantic miniatures. So pocketing my picture, I hied me forthwith to Dupont Street.

The tent seemed quite deserted. At first, I feared my rare bird had flitted; I shook the bit of flying-jib that answered for a door, and called to any one within, more than once, before an inmate stirred. Then, so quietly that I had not heard his approach, a lad, of ten perhaps, came to the entrance, and, timidly peering up into my face, asked, "Is it my father you wish to see, Sir?"

How beautiful! how graceful! with what touching sweetness of voice! how intellectual his expression, and how well-bred his air!--plainly a gentleman's son, and the son of no common gentleman! Instinctively I drew back a pace to compare him with the child of the "specimens." Unquestionably the same,--there were the superior brow, the richly clustered curls of golden brown, the painful lips, and the foreboding eyes.

"If your father painted these pretty pictures, my boy,--yes, I would be glad to see him, if he is within."

"He is not here at present, Sir; he went with my mother to the ship, to bring away our things. But it is quite a long while since they went; and I think they will return presently. Take a seat, Sir, please."

I accepted the stool he offered,--a canvas one, made to "unship" and fold together,--such a patent accommodation for tired "hurdies" as amateur sketchers and promiscuous lovers of the picturesque in landscape take with them on excursions. My accustomed eye took in at a glance the poor furniture of that very Californian make-shift of a shelter for fortune-seeking heads. There were chests, boxes, and trunks, the usual complement, bestowed in every corner, as they could best be got out of the way,--a small, rough table, on temporary legs, and made, like the seats, to unship and be stowed,--several other of the same canvas stools,--a battered chest of drawers, at present doing the duty of a cupboard,--some kitchen utensils, and a few articles of table furniture of the plainest delft. As for the kitchen, I had noticed, as I passed, a portable furnace for charcoal, without, and at the rear of the tent; it was plain they did their cooking in the open air. On one side of the entrance, and near the top of the tent, a small square had been cut from the canvas, and the sides framed with slats of wood, making a sort of Rembrandtish skylight, through which some scanty rays of barbaric glory fell on an easel, with its palette, brushes, and paints. A canvas framed, on which the ground had been laid, and the outline of a head already traced, was mounted on the easel; other such frames, as if of finished portraits with their faces turned to the wall, stood on the earthen floor, supported by a strip of wood tacked to the tent-cloth near the bottom. On the floor, at the foot of the easel, lay an artist's sketch-book. A part of the tent behind was divided off from what, by way of m