for
he was the pitcher of the nine, and found his mother handling his clayey
creatures.

"Tony, when did you do these?"

"Oh, they are nothing. Leave them alone, mother. I meant to fire them
all out."

"But this is an excellent likeness of the General, Tony."

He threw down his baseball mask and gloves and began to gather up
unceremoniously the little objects which had dried crisp and hard.

"Don't destroy them," his mother said; "I want every one of them. And
you must stop being a rowdy and a ruffian, Antony--you are an artist."

He was smoothing between his palms one of the small figures.

"Professor Dufaucon could teach you something--not much, poor old
gentleman, but something elementary. To-morrow, after school, you must
go to take your first lesson."

Mrs. Fairfax took the boy herself, with the bust of the famous General
in her hands, and afterwards sent the bust to Washington, to its subject
himself, who was pleased to commend the portrait made of him by the
little Southern boy from the clay of the New Orleans levee.

Professor Dufaucon taught him all he knew of art and something of what
he knew of other things. In the small hall-room of the poor French
drawing-master, Antony talked French, learned the elements of the study
of beauty and listened to the sweet strains of the Professor's flute
when he played, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle...."

In everything that he modelled Antony tried to portray his mother's
face. As she had been indifferent to him before, so ardently Mrs.
Fairfax adored him now. She poured out her tenderness on this crippled
boy. He had been known to say to his Mammy that he was glad that he had
fallen from the cherry tree because his mother had never kissed him
before, and her tears and her love, he thought, were worth the price.
She was as selfish with him in her affection as she had been in her
indifference. She would not hear of college, and he learned what he
could in New Orleans. But the day came when his mistress, art, put in a
claim so seductive and so strong that it clouded everything else.
Professor Dufaucon died, and in the same year Antony sent a statuette to
the New York Academy of Design. It was accepted, and the wine of that
praise went to his head.

Mrs. Fairfax, broken as no event in her life had been able to break
her, saw Antony leave for the North to seek his fortune and his fame.

She owned her house in Charles Street, and lived on in it, and the
little income t