“Scarcely that; she loves to be noticed. Nothing really seems to pain her so much as when she is passed over unremarked. When such an event would occur in the circus, I have seen her sob through her sleep all the night after. I half suspect now she is piqued at the little notice you have bestowed upon her. All the better if it be so.” “But here she comes again.” With the same speed she now came back to us, holding her slate over her head, and showing that she rightly interpreted what the old man had said of her. “Now for my turn!” said Vaterchen, with a smile. “She is never weary of drawing me in every absurd and impossible posture.” “What is it to be, Tintefleck?” asked he. “How am I to figure this time?” She shook her head without replying, and, making a sign that she was not to be questioned or interrupted, she nestled down at the foot of the fig-tree, and began to draw. The old man now drew near me, and proceeded to give me further details of her strange temper and ways. I could mark that throughout all he said a tone of intense anxiety and care prevailed, and that he felt her disposition was exactly that which exposed her to the greatest perils for her future. There was a young artist who used to follow her through all the South Tyrol, affecting to be madly in love with her, but of whose sincerity and honor Vaterchen professed to have great misgivings. He gave her lessons in drawing, and, what was less to be liked, he made several studies of herself. “The artless way,” said the old man, “she would come and repeat to me all his raptures about her, was at first a sort of comfort to me. I felt reassured by her confidence, and also by the little impression his praises seemed to make, but I saw later on that I was mistaken. She grew each day more covetous of these flatteries, and it was no longer laughingly, but in earnest seriousness, she would tell me that the 'Fornarina' in some gallery had not such eyes as hers, and that some great statue that all the world admired was far inferior to her in shape. If I had dared to rebuke her vanity, or to ridicule her pretensions, all my influence would have been gone forever. She would have left us, gone who knows whither, and been lost, so that I had nothing for it but to seem to credit all she said and yet hold the matter lightly, and I said beauty had no value except when associated with rank and station. If queens and princesses be handsome, they are more fitted to adorn this high estate, but for humble folk it is as great a mockery as these tinsel gems we wear in the circus. “'Max says not,' said she to me one evening, after one of my usual lectures. 'Max says, there are queens would give their coronets to have my hair; ay, or even one of the dimples in my cheek.' “'Max is a villain,' said I, before I could control my words.