too, of a
spontaneous sort. Don't you find it so, my dear baron? You are a lucky
man, Hans, to have such a being run into your hands. In what garden did
this little slip grow?"

Jansen shrugged his shoulders.

"Come, out with it, old Jealousy! You need not lend her to me for any
length of time--only for one forenoon. I happen to have a composition
in mind, for which this little one--"

"You will have to run after luck more persistently than the law of your
laziness permits," added Jansen, quietly. "I myself didn't catch it by
the forelock this time without some trouble; and, although this
forelock is very thick, and shone before me in the most beautiful
red--"

"Red hair? Now no dodges will help you, Jansen, you must hand her over
to me. Something of this sort has floated before my fancy for weeks
past--something of the wood-nymph, water-nymph nature."

"Hand her over! But it isn't in my power. Friend Felix happened to drop
in, the second time she was with me. She took this so to heart that,
since then, she has disappeared, leaving no traces behind her."

"Is there virtue under this beautiful exterior? So much the better.
Nature will enjoy her natural bounds all the longer, and so virtue will
also tend to the benefit of art. Tell me where she lives--the rest
shall be my care."

He noted down the address, which was written in charcoal on the wall
near the window, and then advanced toward the large, veiled group in
the middle of the studio.

"How far have you got with the Eve?"

"Unfortunately, I can't show her to you to-day," replied Jansen,
quickly. "She is just at a stage--"

"What the devil!" laughed Fat Rossel; "this looks very dangerous! How
long is it since you have fastened your cloths down with safety pins?
Don't you want the priests to snuff around here when they wander in
from the saint-factory?"

A knock on the door relieved Jansen from the evident embarrassment of
answering. The door opened, and Angelica, in her painting-jacket and
with her brush behind her ear, just as she had come from her easel,
appeared on the threshold.

"Good-day, Herr Jansen," she said. "Ah! I am disturbing you. You have
company. I will come again later--I merely had a favor to ask."

"And you hesitate to give utterance to this request before a colleague
and old admirer?" cried Rossel, going up to the artist and gallantly
kissing her hand. "If you only knew, Fraeulein Angelica how this
undeserved slight hurt my tende