s the magnificent, Paris that laughs and leers and sees men and women
go down to death, and still laughs on.

They lived, away up and up in a tenement-house, in two little rooms.
There was no servant, and the boys took hold cheerfully to do the
housekeeping, for the mother wasn't so very strong.

The first thing was to acquire the French language, and if you live in
Paris the task is easy. You just have to--that's all.

Madame Scheffer was an artist of some little local repute in the village
where they had lived, and she taught her boys the rudiments of drawing.

Ariel was always called Ary. When he grew to manhood he adopted this pet
name his mother had playfully given him. He used to call her "Little
Mother." Shortly after reaching Paris, Ary was placed in the studio of M.
Guerin. Arnold showed a liking for the Oriental languages, and was
therefore allowed to follow the bent of his mind. Henry waxed fat on the
crumbs of learning that Ary brought home.

And so they lived and worked and studied; very happy, with only now and
then twinges of fear for the future, for it would look a little black at
times, do all they could to laugh away the clouds. It was a little
democracy of four, with high hopes and lofty ideals. Mutual tasks and
mutual hardships bound them together in a love that was as strong as it
was tender and sweet.

Two years of Paris life had gone by, and the little fund that had not
been augmented by a single franc in way of income had dwindled sadly.

In six months it was gone.

They were penniless.

The mother sold her wedding-ring and the brooch her husband had given her
before they were married.

Then the furniture went to the pawnbroker's, piece by piece.

One day Ary came bounding up the stairs, three steps at a time. He burst
into the room and tossed into his mother's lap fifty francs.

When he got his breath he explained that he had sold his first picture.

Ary, the elder boy, was eighteen; Henri, the younger, was thirteen. "It
was just like a play, you see," said Ary Scheffer, long years afterward.
"When things get desperate enough they have to mend--they must. The
pictures I painted were pretty bad, but I really believe they were equal
to many that commanded large prices, and I succeeded in bringing a few
buyers around to my views. Genius may starve in a garret, if alone; but
the genius that would let its best friends starve, too, being too modest
to press its claims, is a little lackin