Nevada County picayune., 1889-09-11

" ouit Nou iiNS tO baNC hiN ioi your lover?" he asked, as he re. turned to his work.
 "You? An! you are d gentleman. 1 am a peasant. Honest girls do not listen to gentlemen.
 Such is the code of virtue among villagers. The young man made nc reply to her words, but said:
 II can see no longer. Will you return here tomorrow little earlier?'
 For my picture"
 Yes"
 II will return. Good evening""
 She took up her fagots, and pass ing under the archine chestnuts, soon disappeared in the shades of the evening.
 Maurice returned home dreaming of the girl with the yellow hair. AL though he had often before seen pretty peasants, whom he had re- garded with an artists eye, he seemed to look on his girl with the jealous eye of a lover. That night and next day seemed long to him, and some time before the appointed hour he was in the glade.
 He worked by himself, and when a little later. the young girl arrived at the sketch, she exclaimed with an air of coquetry and surprise;
 "Ah, it is 1 Are you going to give it to me?'
 No, 1 will make small picture for you"
 And this one, what are you going to do with it:''
 1t is going to Paris; it will be put in a large frame, it will be hung in grand salon and all the world will 20 to see it.
 "Ahl yes, l know; at the eXposi- tion."
 ''You know what that is?''
 There have been artists here be- fore who painted pictures for the ex- position, as they said, but they never painted my portrait"
 The day was drawing to beauti- ful close. The atmosphere had the soft, delicate tones which had de- lighted Maurice on the previous even- ing, and his work advanced rapidly.
 He painted on the picture after wards in his studio He determined to make 1t his best work. Being al- ready well-known, it was no longer necessary for him to seek to make a name: nevertheless, he was certain that this picture would set the seal on his reputation.
 By the time he had finished the picture to his satisfaction winter had come. and Maurice was in love with his little model,
 He loved her too much to tell her of his love, too much to tear from her native meadow this flower of maiden hood whom he could not make his wife, but enough to suffer at the thought of parting from her. She had naught that goes to the making of happiness in life, neither depth of sentiment, nor devotion, which makes one forget all else, nor passion, which excuses all things; she was simply a pretty flower of the field, little valn, little coquettish, without either grave faults or other virtues. Mau- rice knew that she could be nothing to him, yet he adored the beautiful outlines of her carcely-developed form, which the folds of her coarse gown chastely cnveloped, yet could not all conceal. He loved those deep eyes, that smiling mouth, those vel low tresses, always in disorder, the little handkerchief that crossed her bosom; all these he loved, and it was with pain he thought of parting from them, One always parts with pain from what he expects never to see again. It is so hard to leave behind one a bit of ones life that he has no right to keep.
 He had carried off her picture, however, and before this he passed the best hours of the winter, cease lesslv laboring to perfect a work al ready perfect,
 The painting was greatly admired. The critics were unanimous In their enthusiasm, but they declared that such q face could not exist except in the mind of q poet or in the imagina- ton of painter, Maurice listened to all this with a smile, and kept to himself the secret ot the sweet face