f all, you must purify your taste by copying
the glorious works of Greek sculpture--in short, you must form yourself
on the Antique. Look there!--just what Madonna's doing now; _she's_
forming herself on the Antique."

Zack went immediately to look at Madonna's drawing, the outline of
which was now finished. "Beautiful! Splendid! Ah! confound it! yes! the
glorious Greeks, and so forth, just as you say, Blyth. A most wonderful
drawing! the finest thing of the kind I ever saw in my life!" Here
he transferred his superlatives to his fingers, communicating them to
Madonna through the medium of the deaf and dumb alphabet, which he had
superficially mastered with extraordinary rapidity under Mr. and Mrs.
Blyth's tuition. Whatever Zack's friends did Zack always admired with
the wildest enthusiasm, and without an instant's previous consideration.
Any knowledge of what he praised, or why he praised it, was a slight
superfluity of which he never felt the want. If Madonna had been a great
astronomer, and had shown him pages of mathematical calculations, he
would have overwhelmed her with eulogies just as glibly as--by means of
the finger alphabet--he was overwhelming her now.

But Valentine's pupil was used to be criticized as well as praised; and
her head was in no danger of being turned by Zack's admiration of her
drawing. Looking up at him with a sly expression of incredulity, she
signed these words in reply:--"I am afraid it ought to be a much better
drawing than it is. Do you really like it?" Zack rejoined impetuously
by a fresh torrent of superlatives. She watched his face, for a moment,
rather anxiously and inquiringly, then bent down quickly over her
drawing. He walked back to Valentine. Her eyes followed him--then
returned once more to the paper before her. The color began to rise
again in her cheek; a thoughtful expression stole calmly over her clear,
happy eyes; she played nervously with the port-crayon that held her
black and white chalk; looked attentively at the drawing; and, smiling
very prettily at some fancy of her own, proceeded assiduously with her
employment, altering and amending, as she went on, with more than usual
industry and care.

What was Madonna thinking of? If she had been willing, and able, to
utter her thoughts, she might have expressed them thus: "I wonder
whether he likes my drawing? Shall I try hard if I can't make it better
worth pleasing him? I will! it shall be the best thing I have ever don