er be sold
while I live. The _common_ opinion that an artist, like a Jew, will sell
the old clo' from his back for money, is erroneous.'

Mr. Briggs shortly after this left the studio, slightly at a discount,
and as if he had been measured, as he said to himself; and then and
there determined to say nothing to Shodd about his failing in his
mission to the savage artist. But Shodd found it all out in the first
conversation he made with Briggs; and very bitter were his feelings when
he learnt that a poor devil of an artist dared possess any thing he
could not buy, and moreover had a quiet moral strength which the vulgar
man feared. In his anger, Shodd, with his disregard for truth, commenced
a fearful series of attacks against the artist, regaling every one he
dared to with the coarsest slanders, in the vilest language, against the
painter's character. A very few days sufficed to circulate them, so that
they reached Rocjean's ears; a very few minutes passed before the artist
presented himself to the eyes of Shodd, and, fortunately finding him
alone, told him in four words, 'You are a slanderer;' mentioning to him,
beside, that if he ever uttered another slander against his name, he
should compel him to give him instantaneous satisfaction, and that, as
an American, Shodd knew what that meant.

It is needless to say that a liar and slanderer is a coward;
consequently Mr. Shodd, with the consequences before his eyes, never
again alluded to Rocjean, and shortly left the city for Naples, to
bestow the light of his countenance there in his great character of Art
Patron.

* * * * *

'It is a heart-touching face,' said Caper, as one morning, while hauling
over his paintings, Rocjean brought the portrait to light which the
cunning Shodd had so longed to possess for cupidity's sake.

'I should feel as if I had thrown Psyche to the Gnomes to be torn to
pieces, if I had given such a face to Shodd. If I had sold it to him, I
should have been degraded; for the women loved by man should be kept
sacred in memory. She was a girl I knew in Prague, and, I think, with
six or eight exceptions, the loveliest one I ever met. Some night, at
sunset, I shall walk over the old bridge, and meet her as we parted;
_apropos_ of which meeting, I once wrote some words. Hand me that
portfolio, will you? Thank you. Oh! yes; here they are. Now, read them,
Caper; out with them!

ANEZKA OD PRAHA.

Years, weary years