pped. "But
what ails you? You look rather pale, my dear."

"Two articles have just come out in which my poor Wenceslas is pulled
to pieces; I have read them, but I have hidden them from him, for they
would completely depress him. The marble statue of Marshal Montcornet
is pronounced utterly bad. The bas-reliefs are allowed to pass muster,
simply to allow of the most perfidious praise of his talent as a
decorative artist, and to give the greater emphasis to the statement
that serious art is quite out of his reach! Stidmann, whom I besought
to tell me the truth, broke my heart by confessing that his own opinion
agreed with that of every other artist, of the critics, and the public.
He said to me in the garden before breakfast, 'If Wenceslas cannot
exhibit a masterpiece next season, he must give up heroic sculpture
and be content to execute idyllic subjects, small figures, pieces of
jewelry, and high-class goldsmiths' work!' This verdict is dreadful to
me, for Wenceslas, I know, will never accept it; he feels he has so many
fine ideas."

"Ideas will not pay the tradesman's bills," remarked Lisbeth. "I was
always telling him so--nothing but money. Money is only to be had for
work done--things that ordinary folks like well enough to buy them. When
an artist has to live and keep a family, he had far better have a design
for a candlestick on his counter, or for a fender or a table, than for
groups or statues. Everybody must have such things, while he may wait
months for the admirer of the group--and for his money---"

"You are right, my good Lisbeth. Tell him all that; I have not the
courage.--Besides, as he was saying to Stidmann, if he goes back to
ornamental work and small sculpture, he must give up all hope of the
Institute and grand works of art, and we should not get the three
hundred thousand francs' worth of work promised at Versailles and by the
City of Paris and the Ministers. That is what we are robbed of by those
dreadful articles, written by rivals who want to step into our shoes."

"And that is not what you dreamed of, poor little puss!" said Lisbeth,
kissing Hortense on the brow. "You expected to find a gentleman, a
leader of Art, the chief of all living sculptors.--But that is poetry,
you see, a dream requiring fifty thousand francs a year, and you have
only two thousand four hundred--so long as I live. After my death three
thousand."

A few tears rose to Hortense's eyes, and Lisbeth drank them with her
e