pathos of his original, and given them so that the old, lonely
figure was a poem, sitting there meditative and alone, on the dead tree,
with the darkness of the descending night behind him.

It was rude, of course, in a way, and had many faults, no doubt; and yet
it was real, true in nature, true in art, and very mournful, and in a
manner beautiful.

Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours watching its gradual creation
after the labor of each day was done, and he knew that Nello had a
hope--vain and wild perhaps, but strongly cherished--of sending this
great drawing to compete for a prize of two hundred francs a year
which it was announced in Antwerp would be open to every lad of talent,
scholar or peasant, under eighteen, who would attempt to win it with
some unaided work of chalk or pencil. Three of the foremost artists in
the town of Rubens were to be the judges and elect the victor according
to his merits.

All the spring and summer and autumn Nello had been at work upon this
treasure, which if triumphant, would build him his first step toward
independence and the mysteries of the art which he blindly, ignorantly,
and yet passionately adored.

He said nothing to any one; his grandfather would not have understood,
and little Alois was lost to him. Only to Patrasche he told all, and
whispered, "Rubens would give it me, I think, if he knew."

Patrasche thought so too, for he knew that Rubens had loved dogs or he
had never painted them with such exquisite fidelity; and men who loved
dogs were, as Patrasche knew, always pitiful.

The drawings were to go in on the first day of December, and the
decision be given on the twenty-fourth, so that he who should win might
rejoice with all his people at the Christmas season.

In the twilight of a bitter wintry day, and with a beating heart, now
quick with hope, now faint with fear, Nello placed the great picture
on his little green milk-cart, and took it, with the help of Patrasche,
into the town, and there left it, as enjoined, at the doors of a public
building.

"Perhaps it is worth nothing at all. How can I tell?" he thought, with
the heart-sickness of a great timidity. Now that he had left it there,
it seemed to him so hazardous, so vain, so foolish, to dream that he, a
little lad with bare feet who barely knew his letters, could do anything
at which great painters, real artists, could ever deign to look. Yet he
took heart as he went by the cathedral; the lordly fo