vivant_, or some other profane purpose. The idle girl seized upon this last, fastened it on her head with the two ribbons still attached to it, and went again before the looking-glass, where she smiled and made faces at her own reflection. Then she took a piece of blue damask out of the pile of things, and threw it like a cloak over her white shoulders. Her hair flowed freely over it, so that at a distance, when one did not see her uncovered neck, she looked like a mediæval madonna, who had stepped out of her frame and had wandered into some merry company. The girl thought herself very beautiful, and quite worthy of reverence in this disguise, and secretly congratulated herself on the surprise and admiration of the sculptor, when he should find her so dressed. That she might await his return more comfortably, she had seated herself on the sofa, put a glass of wine on a chair beside her, and begun to eat a roll. She had come across a portfolio of photographs of celebrated pictures, and had laid it open in her lap, resting her feet on the dog's back; and so she had sat now a full half-hour, absorbed in looking at the pictures (which she found generally very ugly), when the little door opened and Jansen again entered the room. At the same moment she started as though shot up by a spring--so rudely that the old dog, giving a low howl and shaking himself, also scrambled up from his sleep. She had seen the young stranger enter behind the sculptor; and now she stood in the middle of the atelier, drawing the little blue silk flag as tightly as she could across her breast, her eyes flaming with anger, and her whole body trembling with excitement. "You need not be afraid, my child," said the sculptor, "this gentleman is also an artist. Good Heavens! How magnificently you have dressed yourself! The halo becomes you excellently. Turn round a little--" She shook her head violently. "Let me go! I will never come again!" she said half aloud. "You haven't kept your word to me! Oh! it is shameful!" "But, Zenz--" "No, never again! You have deceived me. You know very well what you promised me, and yet--" "But if you would only listen! I assure you solemnly--" Shaking her head and blushing crimson, she ran to the chair where she had laid her waist and her straw hat, seized them hurriedly, and shot like an arrow through the little side-door into the second studio. The sculptor tried to follow her, but had to turn back at the bolted door. Vexed and annoyed, he turned again to Felix, who had let the girl pass almost unnoticed in the demonstrative recognition he received from the dog. The powerful animal had come leaping toward him with all the liveliness of his younger days, had rested his heavy paws on his old friend's breast, barking hoarsely the while, and seemed unwilling to let him go again.