Margaret Van Eyck stared at him; and then smiled. She went on to tell them how from step to step she had been led on to promise to resume the art she had laid aside with a sigh when her brothers died, and to paint the Madonna once more--with Margaret for model. Incidentally she even revealed how girls are turned into saints. "'Thy hair is adorable,' said I. 'Why, 'tis red,' quo' she. 'Ay,' quoth I, 'but what a red! how brown! how glossy! most hair is not worth a straw to us painters: thine the artist's very hue. But thy violet eyes, which smack of earth, being now languid for lack of one Gerard, now full of fire in hopes of the same Gerard, these will I lift to heaven in fixed and holy meditation, and thy nose, which doth already somewhat aspire that way (though not so piously as Reicht's), will I debase a trifle, and somewhat enfeeble thy chin.'" "Enfeeble her chin? Alack! what may that mean? Ye go beyond me, mistress." "'Tis a resolute chin. Not a jot too resolute for this wicked world: but, when ye come to a Madonna? No thank you." "Well I never. A resolute chin." _Denys._] "The darling!" "And now comes the rub. When you told me she was--the way she is, it gave me a shock: I dropped my brushes. Was I going to turn a girl, that couldn't keep her lover at a distance, into the Virgin Mary, at my time of life? I love the poor ninny still. But I adore our blessed Lady. Say you, 'a painter must not be peevish in such matters.' Well, most painters are men: and men are fine fellows. They can do aught. Their saints and virgins are neither more nor less than their lemans, saving your presence. But know that for this very reason half their craft is lost on me, which find beneath their angels' white wings the very trollops I have seen flaunting it on the streets, bejewelled like Paynim idols, and put on like the queens in a pack o' cards. And I am not a fine fellow, but only a woman, and my painting is but one half craft, and t'other half devotion. So now you may read me. 'Twas foolish, maybe, but I could not help it: yet am I sorry." And the old lady ended despondently a discourse which she had commenced in a mighty defiant tone. "Well, you know, dame," observed Catherine, "you must think it would go to the poor girl's heart, and she so fond of ye?" Margaret Van Eyck only sighed. The Frisian girl, after biting her lips impatiently a little while, turned upon Catherine. "Why, dame, think you 'twas for that alone Margaret and Peter hath left Sevenberg? Nay." "For what else, then?" "What else? Why because Gerard's people slight her so cruel. Who would bide among hard-hearted folk that ha' driven her lad t'Italy, and, now he is gone, relent not, but face it out, and ne'er come anigh her that is left?" "Reicht, I was going."