so if the
background is the Street of a French or an Italian town.

Some nights we went to the _Cafe de la Paix_ on the _Rive Droite_; other
nights, to the _Cafe d'Harcourt_ on the _Rive Gauche_; and occasionally
to the _Cafe de la Regence_ where many artists went, especially foreign
artists, and more especially Scandinavians. I seem to retain a vision of
Thaulow, a blond giant more than fitting in the corner of the little
raised enclosure in the front of the _cafe_. My one other recollection
is of a story I heard there, though of the painter who told it I can
recall only that he was a Belgian. If I recall the story so well, it
must be because it struck me at the time as characteristic and in memory
became forever after associated with the little open space I was looking
over to as I listened, amused and interested, while the flower women
pushed past their barrows piled high with the big round bunches of
budding lilies-of-the-valley you see nowhere save in Paris. It is
impossible for me to think of the _cafe_ without thinking of the little
_Place_, nor of the little _Place_ without at once hearing again the
artist's voice lingering joyfully over the adventures of his youth.

The story was one of a kind I had often listened to at the _Nazionale_
in Rome and the _Orientale_ in Venice--a story of student days--a story
of two young painters coming to Paris in their first ripe enthusiasm,
with devotion to squander upon the masters, upon none more lavishly than
upon Jules Breton, which explains what ages ago it was and how young
they must have been. They were at the _Salon_, standing in silent
worship before Breton's peasant woman with a scythe against a garish
sunset, when they heard behind them an adoring voice saying the things
they were thinking to one they knew must be the _cher maitre_ himself,
and they felt if they could once shake his hand life could hold no
higher happiness. The worship of the young is pleasant to the old.
Breton let them shake his hand and, more, he kept them at his side until
his visit to the _Salon_ was finished, and then sent them away walking
on air. They were leaving the next day. In the morning they went to the
_Rue de Rivoli_ to buy toys to take home to their little brothers and
sisters, and one selected a dog and the other a mill, and when wound up
the dog played the drum and cymbals and the mill turned its wheel and,
children themselves, they were ravished and would not have the toys
wrapp