Here Rosa Bonheur receives her guests with the frankness, kindness, and unaffected simplicity for which she is so eminently distinguished. In person she is small, and rather under the middle height, with a finely-formed head, and broad rather than high forehead; small, well-defined, regular features, and good teeth; hazel eyes, very clear and bright; dark-brown hair, slightly wavy, parted on one side and cut short in the neck; a compact, shapely figure; hands small and delicate, and extremely pretty little feet. She dresses very plainly, the only colors worn by her being black, brown, and gray; and her costume consists invariably of a close-fitting jacket and skirt of simple materials. On the rare occasions when she goes into company--for she accepts very few of the invitations with which she is assailed--she appears in the same simple costume, of richer materials, with the addition merely of a lace collar. She wears none of the usual articles of feminine adornment; they are not in accordance with her thoughts and occupations. At work she wears a round pinafore or blouse of gray linen that envelops her from the neck to the feet. She impresses one at first sight with the idea of a clear, honest, vigorous, independent nature; abrupt, yet kindly; original, self-centred, and decided, without the least pretension or conceit; but it is only when you have seen her conversing earnestly and heartily, her enthusiasm roused by some topic connected with her art, or with the great humanitary questions of the day; when you have watched her kindling eyes, her smile at once so sweet, so beaming, and so keen, her expressive features irradiated, as it were, with an inner light, that you perceive how very beautiful she really is. To know how upright and how truthful she is, how single-minded in her devotion to her art, how simple and unassuming, fully conscious of the dignity of her artistic power, but respecting it rather as a talent committed to her keeping than as a quality personal to herself, you must have been admitted to something more than the ordinary courtesy of a reception-day. While, if you would know how noble and how self-sacrificing she has been, not only to every member of her own family, but to others possessing no claim on her kindness but such as that kindness gave them, you must learn it from those who have shared her bounty, for you will never know a word of it from herself. Her dislike to being written about will prevent many interesting particulars in regard to her from becoming known; but, if they ever come to light, they will show her life replete with noble teachings, and that the great painter whose fame will go down to coming ages was as admirable a woman as she was gifted as an artist; that her moral worth was no less transcendent than her genius.