with an expression of wondering admiration.

Before we arrived at Avignon we knew the history of the young man. He was
an artist, who had spent several years studying in Paris, without friends,
without resources, except a miserable pittance which his mother, a poor
peasant woman living in a village not far from Aix, had managed to send
him. At first he had been upheld by hope; and although he knew that his
mother not only denied herself necessaries, but borrowed money to support
him, he was consoled by the idea that the time would come when, by the
efforts of his genius, he would be able to repay every thing with the
accumulated interest which affection alone would calculate. But his
expenses necessarily increased, and no receipts came to meet them. He was
compelled to apply to his mother for further assistance. The answer was
one word--"impossible." Then he endeavored calmly to examine his position,
came to the conclusion that for several years more he must be a burden to
his mother if he obstinately pursued his career, and that she must be
utterly ruined to insure his success. So he gave up his art, sold every
thing he had to pay part of his debts, and set out on foot to return to
big village and become a peasant, as his father had been before him. The
little money he had taken with him was gone by the time he reached Lyon.
He had passed through that city without stopping, and for more than two
days, almost for two nights, had incessantly pursued his journey, without
rest and without food, until he had reached the spot where, exhausted with
fatigue and hunger, he had fallen, perhaps to perish had we not been there
to assist him.

Nathalie listened with eager attention to this narrative, told with a
frankness which our sympathy excited. Now and then she gave a convulsive
start, or checked a hysterical sob, and at last fairly burst into tears. I
was interested as well as she, but retained more calmness to observe how
moral beauty almost vainly straggled to appear through the insignificant
features of this admirable woman. Her little eyes, reddened with weeping;
her pinched-up nose, blooming at the point; her thin lips, probably
accustomed to sarcasm; her cheeks, with a leaded citron hue; her hair that
forked up in unmanageable curls--all combined to obscure the exquisite
expression of respect and sympathy, perhaps already of love, sparkling
from her kindled soul, that could just be made out by an attentive eye. At
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