At first he came often, then, as he had not time enough for all his commissions, accepted and undertaken, the advances on which went to pay for the scrapes, the pleasures of his existence, he was seen more seldom in the parlour. Finally, sickness intervened. Stricken by an incurable anaemia, he would remain for weeks without leaving his house, without doing any work. Thereupon he wished to have his daughter with him again; and from the boarding-school, sheltered by so healthy a tranquility, Felicia returned once more to her father’s studio, haunted still by the same boon companions, the parasites which swarm around every celebrity, into the midst of which sickness had introduced a new personage, Dr. Jenkins. His fine open countenance, the air of candour, of serenity that seemed to dwell about the person of this physician, already famous, who was wont to speak of his art so carelessly and yet seemed to work miraculous cures, the care with which he surrounded her father, these things made a great impression on the young girl. Jenkins became immediately her friend, confidant, a vigilant and kind guardian. Occasionally, when, in the studio, somebody--her father most likely of all--uttered a risky jest, the Irishman would contract his eyebrows, give a little click of the tongue, or perhaps distract Felicia’s attention. He often used to take her to pass the day with Mme. Jenkins, endeavouring to prevent her from becoming again the wild young thing she was before going to school, or even something worse, as she threatened to do in the moral neglect, sadder than all other, in which she was left. But the young girl had as a protection something even better than the irreproachable and worldly example of the handsome Mme. Jenkins: the art that she adored, the enthusiasm which it implanted in her nature wholly occupied with outside things, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which, from her thoughtful brain, full of ideas, passed into her fingers with a little quivering of the nerves, a desire of the idea accomplished, of the realized image. All day long she would work at her sculpture, giving shape to her dreams with that happiness of instinctive youth which lends so much charm to early work; this prevented her from any excessive regret for the austerity of the Belin institution, sheltering and light as the veil of a novice before her vows, and preserved her also from dangerous conversations, unheard amid her unique preoccupation.