eling, rapt as in an ecstasy, before the altar-picture of
the Assumption, and when he noticed Patrasche, and rose and drew the dog
gently out into the air, his face was wet with tears, and he looked up
at the veiled places as he passed them, and murmured to his companion,
"It is so terrible not to see them, Patrasche, just because one is poor
and cannot pay! He never meant that the poor should not see them when he
painted them, I am sure. He would have had us see them any day, every
day: that I am sure. And they keep them shrouded there,--shrouded in the
dark, the beautiful things!--and they never feel the light, and no eyes
look on them, unless rich people come and pay. If I could only see them,
I would be content to die."

But he could not see them, and Patrasche could not help him, for to gain
the silver piece that the church exacts as the price for looking on the
glories of the Elevation of the Cross and the Descent of the Cross was a
thing as utterly beyond the powers of either of them as it would have
been to scale the heights of the cathedral spire. They had never so much
as a sou to spare: if they cleared enough to get a little wood for the
stove, a little broth for the pot, it was the utmost they could do. And
yet the heart of the child was set in sore and endless longing upon
beholding the greatness of the two veiled Rubens.

The whole soul of the little Ardennois thrilled and stirred with an
absorbing passion for Art. Going on his ways through the old city in the
early days before the sun or the people had risen, Nello, who looked
only a little peasant-boy, with a great dog drawing milk to sell from
door to door, was in a heaven of dreams whereof Rubens was the god.
Nello, cold and hungry, with stockingless feet in wooden shoes, and the
winter winds blowing amongst his curls and lifting his poor thin
garments, was in a rapture of meditation, wherein all that he saw was
the beautiful fair face of the Mary of the Assumption, with the waves of
her golden hair lying upon her shoulders, and the light of an eternal
sun shining down upon her brow. Nello, reared in poverty, and buffeted
by fortune, and untaught in letters, and unheeded by men, had the
compensation or the curse which is called Genius.

No one knew it. He as little as any. No one knew it. Only indeed
Patrasche, who, being with him always, saw him draw with chalk upon the
stones any and every thing that grew or breathed, heard him on his
little bed of