Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/83

Rh "Come here," he said; "I want to speak to you."

He drew the boy to him out into the moonlight. They seated themselves upon a low wall.

The man took from his pocket a worn pocket-book.

"There is no use forbidding you to dream or follow your inclination to art," he said, "but I will show you before you are too old to change what it leads to. Your mother wonders where you get your love of art from. Look here and here."

He drew from the book some old yellow papers, and smoothed them upon his knee caressingly.

"I was for a few years an art student, and you see I won my passes in all subjects I entered for. You are surprised, you never knew and nobody at home suspects I ever learnt to draw. Well, as a lad I studied in the evenings after my work. I had a clerkship which brought me in enough to pay for my art classes. The masters were good to me, and said I should be a great artist if I stuck to my work and studied hard. I did till I was