ust be
said, yet in that blessed youthfulness when the loins are girded with
the strength that reduces mountains to molehills and forces the Apollyon
of dismay to flee from out every dark valley.

Behold Paletta--twenty-three years of age, with a winy color upon her
lips, the faintest perceptible shadow of fading upon the roses of her
cheeks, a little anxious wrinkle between her earnest gray eyes, a slight
nasal twang in her New England voice, and a fresh flounce upon her old
black alpaca dress--the first morning of her experience in an _atelier
des dames_ in Paris! She had come down the hill from her dark little
room on Montmartre, fancying that the gray December day was crystalline,
that the dingy Rue Germain Pillon--with its dirty gamins of both sexes
in cropped hair and blouses or white caps and black gowns, its frowsy
women slouching in doorways, its succession of odorous _cuisines
bourgeoises_, vile-smelling _lavoirs_, cheap fruit-shops and plebeian
_cremeries_, its slimy cobblestones, its gutters running _not_ with
laughing waters, and sending up scents _not_ of spicy isles ensphered
by sun-illumined seas--was a rainbow arch over which she passed with
airy tread toward the Krug studio. For had she not at last finished for
ever the detestable photograph-coloring which had been a daily
crucifixion of all her artistic feelings for years? Had she not at last
reached the Enchanted Land for which she had labored and pined for half
her life? Had she not clothes enough to last her with patient mendings
and persistent remakings for two years? Had she not a thousand dollars
at the Credit Lyonnais? And did not that stately entrance before her
lead into a spacious courtyard, and that courtyard open upon the famous
_Atelier des Dames_, where, at the feet of celebrated masters of form
and color, she was to learn some of the mysteries of the art to which
she had vowed her life?

[Illustration: "JE VIEN ME PROPOSER COMME MODELE, MESDAMES."]

Within the court, before the handsome building whose story after story
of immense north windows showed it to be a collection of artists'
studios, she found an interesting _tableau vivant_. A group of
chattering models came laughing across the sunny court. In one corner
loomed a huge square object surmounted by the conical crown of a
Tyrolean hat. Nothing else was visible except a pair of gaitered feet
mixed among the legs of a sketching-easel, making the whole seem some
queer phenomenal c