r she was
dug out, for Jo was so overcome with laughter while she excavated that
her knife went too far, cut the poor foot, and left a lasting memorial
of one artistic attempt, at least.

After this Amy subsided, till a mania for sketching from nature set her
to haunting river, field, and wood, for picturesque studies, and
sighing for ruins to copy. She caught endless colds sitting on damp
grass to book 'a delicious bit', composed of a stone, a stump, one
mushroom, and a broken mullein stalk, or 'a heavenly mass of clouds',
that looked like a choice display of featherbeds when done. She
sacrificed her complexion floating on the river in the midsummer sun to
study light and shade, and got a wrinkle over her nose trying after
'points of sight', or whatever the squint-and-string performance is
called.

If 'genius is eternal patience', as Michelangelo affirms, Amy had some
claim to the divine attribute, for she persevered in spite of all
obstacles, failures, and discouragements, firmly believing that in time
she should do something worthy to be called 'high art'.

She was learning, doing, and enjoying other things, meanwhile, for she
had resolved to be an attractive and accomplished woman, even if she
never became a great artist. Here she succeeded better, for she was
one of those happily created beings who please without effort, make
friends everywhere, and take life so gracefully and easily that less
fortunate souls are tempted to believe that such are born under a lucky
star. Everybody liked her, for among her good gifts was tact. She had
an instinctive sense of what was pleasing and proper, always said the
right thing to the right person, did just what suited the time and
place, and was so self-possessed that her sisters used to say, "If Amy
went to court without any rehearsal beforehand, she'd know exactly what
to do."

One of her weaknesses was a desire to move in 'our best society',
without being quite sure what the best really was. Money, position,
fashionable accomplishments, and elegant manners were most desirable
things in her eyes, and she liked to associate with those who possessed
them, often mistaking the false for the true, and admiring what was not
admirable. Never forgetting that by birth she was a gentlewoman, she
cultivated her aristocratic tastes and feelings, so that when the
opportunity came she might be ready to take the place from which
poverty now excluded her.

"My lady," as her frien