Beverly banner., 1924-09-26

SE>A~k-S X8ASG
| face, hearing him say, dozen times
a day, that she had given him back
his life; her happy, grateful heart was
only too full. He began to work at
once, and for awhile she worked, too
But swiftly she saw that her earnest
and clever beginning was as that of
promising child. There were ten
thousand girls in Paris who could do
what Ellen could do.
Gibbs was genius, she never doubt
ed 1t, and 1t was only year or two
after they came to Paris that his world
began to see it, too. He went straight
at his portrait work, and he lived only
for that, and for her. And Ellen,
watching other women struggle and
despair, In loneliness and poverty,
wondered, with her old, sweet, child
ish surprise, why God had been so
good to her.
| And presently she had Tommy, and
they were playing at housekeeping In
the tiniest of little lost villages In
Brittany. These were days Of sun
shine. while Gibbs, wonderful In
| knickerbockers and paint-smeared
smock, painted, and Yvonne walked
bareheaded to market, and Ellen
played under twisted old trees with
| Tommy. Tommy had no nurse but his
picturesque little mother now, for FL
len was thrifty, even in Paris, and FL
len had spent more than one evening
on the arm of Gibbs chair, working
out the financial end Of their problem
Their money must last until this time
or that time-they must think of the
future.
When Tommy was two years old,
and before the second child was born,
Gibbs painted his wife. They were in
Brittany again, and Ellen, with white
sewing in the lap of checked blue
gown, and figure and face already
caught In the first rising tide of
motherhood, was set against back
ground Of gnarled old grapevines.
The picture was hung in the Salon
des Independents, and Ellen, when her
delicate little girl was a few weeks
old, went to see 1t. There was a
crowd about it; there was always a
crowd about 1t. 1t was the discussed
picture Of the year, but she always
looked at 1t with a little pang at her
heart She had been so happy in those
sleepy July days In the grape-arbor
she had thought that the new baby
would be like Tommy, strong and gay
| hn tfnu thing
who had been named Rose for Gibbs
mother, was so frail Even while she
was looking at Gibbs picture. his first
success, Ellen's heart was in the little
nursery on Mont Saint Etienne, hang
ing agonized above the little bed
where Rose Josselyn lay quiet, apa-
I! thetic, half asleep.
The picture, during the winter,
caused widening circle of comment
and admiration, and presently Gibbs
had his first commission. and was to
paint a boy of ten, in the trim gray
| uniform of military school. and re-
ceive two thousand francs for the pic
ture.
So fame was coming, and fortune
| would come close on her heels. Ellen,
sitting by the studio window In the
| winter afternoons, and looking out at
the fiuttering snow into which Yvonne
had taken the dancing Tommy. mused
upon the dream that had become the
fact. She had Paris, Gibbs, and Tom
my-so much more than she had asked !
But the silent, apathetic little Rose
was gone from the nursery now, never
| to lie against her mothers heart again.
Was that the cost of success-she
wondered. Success was new, but ah,
this constant hunger at her heart was
new, too How gladly-how gladly
she would let the one go, II she might
lose the otheri
Gibbs painted three more portraits
the next winter, which made them feel
rich; hut he was working hard and en-
Enthusiastically in the atelier six morn
ings a week, and neither he nor Ellen
| were inclined to extravaganza, so that
| there was no particular incentive to
| seek commissions.
And so the exquisite years went by,
/
| and still the Josselyns lived in their own
happiness, shut away from the world,
and glad to forget 1t. Ellen's whole
| heart was wrapped about her husband,
her girlish idealism had never been
| disturbed. True. she knew now that
Gibbs was human. She knew now that
he could be unreasonable, that he had
moods in which she and Tommy and
Yvonne must keep even crumpled
roseleaf from his path.
But he loved her, she amused him
and pleased his pride. and her happy
WAYS with him. that sometimes were
those of daughter and pupil, some
times wide-eyed admiration, sometimes
all motherly, were dear to him. He did
not have to ask her If she loved him
he was all her world
Suddenly, In the seventh year. new