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When
they reached Mrs. Wood's door, Cohn, feeling that he must rise to
the
situation, pulled out his purse to pay for the hansom, but Minna
waved
him aside with a dignified air of authority. 'No no,' she said,
'that
won't do; take my purse, Cohn. I don't know how much to pay him,
and
like enough he'd cheat me; but you know the ways in London.'
Colin
took the purse, and opened it. The first compartment he opened
contained
some silver, wrapped up in a scrap of tissue paper. Colin
undid
the paper and took out a shilling, which he was going to hand the
cabman,
when Minna laid her hand upon his arm and suddenly checked him.
'No,
no,' she said, 'not that, Colin. From the other side, please,
will
you?'
Colin
looked at the contents of the little paper once more, and rapidly
counted
it. It was nine shillings. He caught Minna's eye at the moment,
and
Minna coloured crimson. Then Cohn knew at once what those nine
shillings
were, and why they were separately wrapped in tissue paper.
He
paid the cabman, from the other half, and put the boxes inside
Mrs.
Wood's
door way. 'And now may I kiss you, Minna?' he asked, in the dark
passage.
'If
you like, Colin,' Minna answered, turning up her full red lips
and
round
face with child-like innocence, Colin Churchill kissed her: and
when
he had kissed her once, he waited a minute, and then he took her
plump
little face between his own two hands and kissed her rather
harder
a
second time. Minna's face tingled a little, but she said nothing.
The
very next morning Minna came round, by Colin's invitation, to
Cicolari's
workshop. Colin was busy at work moulding, and Minna cast
her
eye around lightly as she entered on all the busts and plaster
casts
that
filled the room. She advanced to meet him as if she expected to
be
kissed,
so Colin kissed her. Then, with a rapid glance round the room,
her
eye rested at last upon the Cephalus and Aurora, and she went
straight
over to look at it with wondering eyes. 'Oh, Colin,' she cried,
did
you do that? What a lovely image!'
Colin
was pleased and flattered at once. 'You like it, Minna?' he said.
'You
really like it?'
Minna
glanced carefully round the room once more with her keen black
eyes,
and after scanning every one of the plaster casts and unfinished
busts
in a comprehensive survey, answered unhesitatingly: 'I like it
best
of everything in the room, Colin, except the image of the man
with
the
plate over yonder.'
Colin
smiled a smile of triumph. Minna was not wholly lacking in taste,
certainly;
for the Cephalus was the best of his compositions, and the
man
with the plate was a plaster copy of the Discobolus. 'You'll do,
Minna,'
he said, patting her little black head with his cleanest hand
(to
the imminent danger of the small hat with the red rose in it).
'You'll
do yet, with a little coaching.'
Then
Colin took her round the studio, as Cicolari ambitiously called
it,
and
explained everything to her, and showed her plates of the Venus
of
Milo, and the Apollo Belvedere, and the Laocoon, and the Niobe,
and
several
other ladies and gentlemen with very long names and no clothes
to
speak of, till poor Minna began at last to be quite appalled at
the
depth
of his learning and quite frightened at her own unquestioning
countrified
ignorance. For as yet Minna had no idea that there was
anything
much to learn in the world except reading and writing, and the
art
of cookery, and the proper use of the English language. But when
she
heard
Colin chattering away so glibly to her about the age of Pheidias,
and
the age of the Decadence, and the sculptors of the Renaissance,
and
the absolute necessity of going to Rome, she began to conceive
that
perhaps
Colin in his own heart might imagine she wasn't now good enough
for
him; which was a point of view on the subject that had never
before
struck
the Dorsetshire fisherman's pretty black-eyed little daughter.
By-and-by,
Colin began to talk of herself and her prospects; and to ask
whether
she was going to put herself down at a registry office; and last
of
all to allude delicately to the matter of the misspelt letter.
'You
know,
Minna,' he said apologetically, feeling his boyish awkwardness
far
more
than ever, 'I've tried a lot to improve myself at Exeter, and
still
more
since I came to London. I've read a great deal, and worked very
hard,
and now I think I'm beginning to get on, and know something, not
only
about art, but about books as well. Now, I know you won't mind my
telling
you, but that letter wasn't all spelt right, or stopped right.
You
ought to be very particular, you know, about the stopping and the
spelling.'
Before
he could say any more, Minna looked full in his face and stopped
him
short immediately. 'Colin,' she said, 'don't say another 'word
about
it.
I know what you mean, and I'm going to attend to it. I never felt
it
in
my life till I came here this morning; but I feel it now, and I
shall
take
care to alter it.' She was a determined little body was Minna;
and
as
she said those words, she looked so thoroughly as if she meant
them
that
Colin dropped the subject at once and never spoke to her again
about
it.
Just
at that moment two customers came to speak to Colin about a
statuette
he was working at for them. It was an old gentleman and a
grand
young lady. Minna stood aside while they talked, and pretended
to
be looking at Cephalus and Aurora with a critical eye, but she
was
really
listening with all her ears to the conversation between Colin
and
the grand young lady. She was a very grand young lady, indeed,
who
talked very fine, and drawled her vowels, and clipped her r's,
and
mangled
the English language hideously, and gave other indubitable signs
of
the very best and highest breeding: and Minna noticed almost with
dismay
that she called Colin 'Mr. Churchill,' and seemed to defer to
all
his opinions about curves and contours and attitudes. 'You have
such
lovely
taste, you know, Mr. Churchill,' the grand young lady said; 'and
we
want this copy to be as good as you can make it, because it's for
a
very
particular friend of ours, who admired the original so much at
Rome
last
winter.'
Minna
listened in awe and trembling, and felt in her heart just a faint
twinge
of feminine jealousy to think that even such a grand young lady
should
speak so flattering like to our Colin.
'And
there's the Cephalus, Papa,' the grand young lady went on. 'Isn't
it
beautiful? I do hope some day, Mr. Churchill, you'll get a
commission
for
it in marble. If I were rich enough, I'd commission it myself, for
I
positively
doat upon it. However, somebody's sure to buy it some time or
other,
so it's no use people like me longing to have it.'
Minna's
heart rose, choking, into her mouth, as she stood there flushed
and
silent.
When
the grand young lady and her papa were gone, Minna said good-bye
a
little
hastily to Colin, and shrank back, crying: 'No, no, Colin,' when
he
tried to kiss her. Then she ran in a hurry to Mrs. Wood's in Dean
Street.
But though she was in a great haste to get home (for her bright
little
eyes had tears swimming in them), she stopped boldly at a small
bookseller's
shop on the way, and invested two whole shillings of her
little
hoard in a valuable work bearing on its cover the title, 'The
Polite
Correspondent's Complete Manual of Letter Writing.' 'He shall
never
kiss me again,' she said to herself firmly, 'until I can feel
that
I've
made myself in every way thoroughly fit for him.'
It
wasn't a very exalted model of literary composition, that
Complete
Manual
of Letter Writing, but at least its spelling and punctuation were
immaculate;
and for many months to come after she had secured her place
as
parlour-maid in an eminently creditable family in Regent's Park,
Minna
sat herself down in her own bedroom every evening, when work
was
over, and deliberately endeavoured to perfect herself in those
two
elementary
accomplishments by the use of the Polite Correspondent's
unconscious
guide, philosopher, and friend. First of all she read a
whole
letter over carefully, observing every stop and every spelling;
then
she copied it out entire, word for word, as well as she could
recollect
it, entirely from memory; and finally she corrected her
written
copy by the printed version in the Complete Manual, until
she
could transcribe every letter in the entire volume with perfect
accuracy.
It wasn't a very great educational effort, perhaps, from the
point
of view of advanced culture; but to Minna Wroe it was a beginning
in
self-improvement, and in these matters above all others the first
step
is everything.
[Illustration:
0238]
CHAPTER
XI. EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGES.
|And
now, while Minna Wroe was waiting at table in Regent's Park, and
while
Colin Churchill was modelling sepulchral images for his Italian
master,
Cicolari, how was our other friend, Hiram Winthrop, employing
his
time beyond the millpond?
'Bethabara
Seminary, at the time when Hiram Winthrop, the eminent
American
artist, was enrolled among its alumni' (writes one of his
fellow-students),
'occupied a plain but substantially built brick
structure,
commodiously located in the very centre of a large cornfield,
near
the summit of a considerable eminence in Madison County, N.Y.
It
had been in operation close on three years when young Winthrop
matriculated
there. He secured quarters in a room with four
fellow-students,
each of whom brought his own dipper, plate, knife,
fork,
and other essential requisites. Mr. Winthrop was always of a
solitary,
retiring character, without much command of language, and not
given
to attending the Debating Forum or other public institutions of
our
academy. Nor was he fond of the society of the lady students,
though
one
or two of them, and notably the talented Miss Aimed A. Stiles,
now
a
prominent teacher in a lyceum at Smyrna, Mo., early detected his
remarkable
gifts for pictorial art, and continually importuned him to
take
their portraits, no doubt designing them for keepsakes to be
given
to
the more popular male students. Young Winthrop always repelled
such
advances:
indeed, he was generally considered in the light of a boorish
rustic;
and his singular aversion towards the Hopkinsite connection (in
which
he had nevertheless been raised by that excellent man, his
father,
late
Deacon Zephaniah Winthrop, of Muddy Creek, N.Y.) caused him to be
somewhat
disliked among his college companions. His chief amusement was
to
retire into the surrounding country, oddly choosing for the
purpose
the
parts remotest from the roads and houses, and there sketch the
animated
creation which seemed always to possess a greater interest for
his
mind than the persons or conversation of his fellow-citizens. He
had,
indeed, as facts subsequently demonstrated, the isolation of a
superior
individual. Winthrop remained at Bethabara, so far as my memory
serves
me, for two years only.'
Indeed,
the Hopkinsite Seminary was not exactly the sort of place fitted
to
suit the peculiar tastes of Hiram Winthrop. The boys and girls
from
the
farms around had hardly more sympathy with him than the deacon
himself.
Yet, on the whole, in spite of the drawbacks of his
surroundings,
Athens was a perfect paradise to poor Hiram. This is a
universe
of relativities: and compared with life on the farm at
Muddy
Creek, life at Bethabara Seminary was absolute freedom and pure
enjoyment
to the solitary little artist. Here, as soon as recitation was
over,
he could wander out into the woods alone (after he had shaken off
the
attentions of the too sequacious Almeda), whenever he liked, no
man
hindering.
The country around was wooded in places, and the scenery,
like
all that in Madison County, was beautifully undulating. Five
miles
along
the leafy highroad brought him to the banks of Cananagua Lake,
one
of
those immeasurable lovely sheets of water that stud the surface
of
Western
New York for miles together; and there Hiram would sit down by
the
shore, and watch the great divers disappearing suddenly beneath
the
surface, and make little pictures of the grey squirrels and the
soldier-birds
on the margin of Cyrus Choke's 'Elements of the Latin
Language,'
which he had brought out with him, presumably for purposes of
preparation
against to-morrow's class-work. But best of all there was
a
drawing-master at Athens, and from him, by Audouin's special
arrangement,
the boy took lessons twice a week in perspective and the
other
technical matters of his art--for, as to native ability, Hiram
was
really
far better fitted to teach the teacher. Not a very great artist,
that
struggling German drawing-master at Athens, with his formal
little
directions
of how to go jig-jig for a pine-tree, and to-whee, whee,
whee,
for an oak; not a very great artist, to be sure; but still, a
grand
relief for Hiram to discover that there were people in the world
who
really cared about these foolish things, and didn't utterly
despise
them
though they _were_ so irrelevant to the truly important questions
of
raising corn, and pork, and potatoes.
The
great joy and delight of the term, however, was Audouin's
periodical
visit
to his little _protégé_. Audouin at least was determined to let
Hiram's
individuality have fair play. He regarded him as a brand plucked
from
the burning of that corn-growing civilisation which he so
cordially
detested;
and he had made up his own mind, rightly or wrongly, that
Hiram
had genius, and that that genius must be allowed freely to
develop
itself.
Hiram loved these quarterly visits better than anything else in
the
whole world, because Audouin was the one person he had met in his
entire
life (except Sam Churchill) who could really sympathise with him.
Two
years after Hiram Winthrop went to Bethabara, Audouin wrote to
ask
whether
he would come and spend a week or two at Lakeside during the
winter
vacation. Hiram cried when he read the letter; so much pleasure
seemed
almost beyond the possibilities of this world, and the deacon
would
surely never consent; but to his great surprise, the deacon wrote
back
gruffly, yes; and as soon as term was finished, Hiram gladly took
the
cars on the New York Central down to Nine Mile Bottom, the depot
for
Lakeside.
Audouin was waiting to meet him at the depot, in a neat little
sleigh;
and they drove away gaily to the jingling music of the bells, in
the
direction of Audouin's cottage.
'A
severe artist, winter,' Audouin said, glancing around him quickly
over
the frozen fields. 'No longer the canvas and the colours, but
the
pure white marble and the flowing chisel. How the contours of the
country
soften with the snow, Hiram; what a divine cloak the winter
clouds
spread kindly over the havoc man has wrought upon this desecrated
landscape!
It was beautiful, once, I believe, in its native woodland
beauty;
and it's beautiful even now when the white pall comes down, so,
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