There was the great Louvre, filled with the riches of the old masters,
and the galleries of the Luxembourg with the gems of the French school,
so marvellous in color and so superb in composition, and the mighty
museum of Versailles, with its miles of battle pictures--yet the third
month of his tenure in Paris was hastening by, and he had not made one
copy.
Suzette was a bad model. She _posed_ twice, but changed her position,
and yawned, and said it was ridiculous. He had never made more than a
crayon portrait of her. He found, too, that five hundred francs a month
barely sufficed to keep them, and once, in the interval of a remittance,
they were in danger of hunger. Yet Suzette plied her needle bravely, and
was never so proud as when she had spread the dinner she had earned. In
acknowledgment of this fidelity Ralph took her to a grand _magasin_,
where they examined the goods gravely, as married folks do, consulting
each other, and trying to seem very sage and anxious.
There probably was never such a bonnet as Suzette's in the world. It was
black, and full of white roses, and floating a defiant ostrich-plume,
and tied with broad red ribbons, whereby she could be recognized from
one end of the Luxembourg gardens to the other.
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