Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/164

 I40 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��THE INSPIRED ARTIST.

��BY HENRIEITA E. PAGE.

^^'^/"NNCE upon a time," as the fairy stories hath it, there Hved in the far

V-x famed City of London, a famous portrait painter, by name of Langdon, who was the happy father of a most lovely and fascinating daughter.

Ethel Langdon was perfect in form and feature ; fair as a lily, gentle as a dove. She had many suitors, numberless admirers, but as yet the maiden's heart was fancy free. She was her father's idol ; her mother being dead, his almost constant companion. She had the most intense and innate love of art, the painters especially. She would sit for hours watching the colors grow and assume shape under her father's skillful brush, and glory, even more than he, in every triumph achieved by him. She delighted in making herself useful to him, cleaning his palettes, mixing his colors, and keeping his studio in immac- ulate order, something of which artists are not generally accusable. It was the busiest time of the year, a few months prior to Christmas, and orders were coming in, one upon another, until the painter was almost at his wits end, when an untoward accident happened ; pretty Ethel sprained her wrist severely, striving to lift a heavy picture frame alone. It was a very severe sprain, mak- ing it necessary that it should be carried in a sling. Her father was in dispair, for the orders still continued pouring in.

"What shall I do, daughter?" he asked one day.

"I am sure I don't know, pa, unless you advertise for an assistant."

"Well thought of, child. Strange it did not strike us sooner. I will do so immediately."

So the advertisement was written and inserted in the London Times, and the very next day was answered.

Ethel was seated as usual by her father's side, not as usual with her beauti- ful embroideries in floss, where the flowers sprung from beneath her fingers so fresh, so fair, that one was almost deceived mto the belief the perfumes could be recognized and inhaled ; but with a book, from which, in a deliciously mu- sical voice, she was reading to her father as he painted.

A timid knock came upon the heavy panel of the door, but was not heard by the absorbed couple at the easel, under the window, at the further end of the room. Then the door was opened, and the intruder stood as if spell- bound, without uttering a sound, drinking in at once the musical cadences of the voice, and the surpassing beauty of the person, of the almost peerless Ethel Langdon.

How long he stood there he never knew, but at last a severe fit of coughing came on, and father and daughter raised their eyes simultaneously, and saw standing in the doorway a tall, thin, handsome young man, with a strangely white face, great midnight eyes, and black curling hair, which hung down upon the velvet collar of his coat. It was a cold day, but no overcoat made a part of his wardrobe. His face, his style, everything marked the aristocrat ; yet that poverty had laid its blight upon him, was also evident. Earnest Langdon arose, and courteously invited his visitor to enter and be seated. The young man gladly did so. When he made known his errand, the painter's bushy-grey eye- brows went up in surprise, for the young man's language was as superior as his appearance.

��I

�� �