e to her that she conceived the idea of visiting
the abattoirs, where she could see animals living and dead and study
their anatomy.

It is not easy to imagine all the difficulties she encountered in doing
this--the many repulsive features of such places--while the company of
drovers and butchers made one of the disagreeables of her pursuits. Her
love for the animals, too, made it doubly hard for her to see them in the
death agony and listen to their pitiful cries for freedom.

In all this experience, however, she met no rude or unkind treatment. Her
drawings won the admiration of the men who watched her make them and they
treated her with respect. She pursued her studies in the same manner in
the stables of the Veterinary School at Alfort and in the Jardin des
Plantes.

At other times she studied in the country the quiet grazing herds, and,
though often mistaken for a boy on account of the dress she wore, she
inspired only admiration for her simplicity and frankness of manner,
while the graziers and horse-dealers respectfully regarded her and
wondered at her skill in picturing their favorite animals. Some very
amusing stories might be told of her comical embarrassments in her
country rambles, when she was determined to preserve her disguise and the
pretty girls were equally determined to make love to her!

Aside from all this laborious study of living animals, she obtained
portions of dead creatures for dissection; also moulds, casts, and
illustrated anatomical books; and, in short, she left no means untried
by which she could perfect herself in the specialty she had chosen. Her
devotion to study and to the practice of her art was untiring, and only
the most engrossing interest in it and an indomitable perseverance,
supplemented and supported by a physically and morally healthful
organization, could have sustained the nervous strain of her life from
the day when she was first allowed to follow her vocation to the time
when she placed herself in the front rank of animal painters.

A most charming picture is drawn of the life of the Bonheur family in the
years when Rosa was making her progressive steps. They lived in an humble
house in the Rue Rumfort, the father, Auguste, Isidore, and Rosa all
working in the same studio. She had many birds and a pet sheep. As the
apartment of the Bonheurs was on the sixth floor, this sheep lived on the
leads, and from time to time Isidore bore him on his shoulders down all
the stai