ell you. Oh Lord! the
only thing which I can see that I can do is to be off to Rome at once,
and, I can assure you, I mean to do it, too."

"Just so," the Goldsmith said: "that is exactly what I want you to do.
Be good enough to remember what I said to you when you first told me
you were in love with Albertine. I said my idea was that a young artist
was right to be in love, but that he should not go and marry, all at
once, because that was most inadvisable. When I said that to you, I
brought to your mind, half in jest, the case of Sternbald; but now I
tell you, in the utmost seriousness, that, if you really wish to become
a great painter, you must put all ideas of marrying out of your head.
Go you away, free and glad, into the Father-land of Art; study, in the
most enthusiastic manner that ever you can, the inner-being of that
world of Art; and then, and only then, will the technical and practical
skill (which you might pick up here) be of the slightest real use to
you."

"Good gracious!" Edmund cried, "what an idiot I was to say anything to
you about my love affairs. I see, now, that it was you--you, on whom I
relied for advice and help in them--who have been purposely throwing
difficulties in the way, playing Old Harry with my most special heart's
desires, out of mere nastiness and unkindness."

"My good young sir!" the Goldsmith said, "just be good enough to keep a
rather quieter tongue in your head. Don't be quite so forcible in your
expressions. Please to remember that you have got one or two things to
learn, still, before you can quite see through _me_. _I_ can excuse
you, of course. I know very well what has upset your temper. This
insane spooniness of yours."

"As regards Art," Edmund said, "I really can't see why I should not go
to Rome and study, though I do stand in this intimate relation with
Albertine. You say yourself that I have a certain amount of 'turn' for
painting, and some practical skill, already. What I was thinking of
was, that, as soon as I was quite sure that Albertine would be mine,
one day, I should be off to Italy; spend a year there, and then come
back to my darling girl, having some real knowledge of my work."

"What, Edmund?" the Goldsmith cried; "was this really your idea,
arrived at after proper consideration?"

"Yes," Edmund answered: "deeply as I love Albertine, my heart burns for
that grand country which is the home of my Art."

"Will you give me your sacred word," the Goldsmi