University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

It was getting toward “the small hours” of a summer's
night in 1830, when Paul Fane tapped at the closely shuttered
window of the house which had always been his
home. The family prayers, invariable at nine o'clock,
were long over, and at the front door, inexorably locked at
ten, the truant son now stood—excluded for the night by
the stern father whose hand had turned the key, but knowing
well that sleepless eyes were watching for him, and lips
whose good-night blessing and kiss would await him, even
till morning.

Softly and noiselessly the door opened. The admitted
moonlight shone for a moment upon the placid features of
the mother, and, as the door closed again, and left the
unlighted staircase in darkness, Paul passed on without
speaking; for their customary good-night was a half hour

or more in his far-up study in the attic—where their voices
would be unheard, and where the son's history of his day,
and the mother's tender sympathy and counsel, could be
freely exchanged. To learn by heart each leaf of her
boy's mind, as it was written and turned over, was the
indispensable happiness of each day to that friend-mother.

The small room in the attic story, with its one gable
window to the north, had, for years, been allowed to Paul
for his nominal study; and, as it contained no bed, and
there was no excuse for intrusion of servant or other person,
it was reasonable for him to keep the key, and preserve
it sacred to the sole use and knowledge of his mother and
himself. The main secret it was thus enabled to cover, was
told by the pallet and easel on which the lighted lamp
now threw its pale lustre, by the canvas-frames turned with
their faces to the wall, and by the engravings, studies, and
sketches with which the sloped ceiling was irregularly
covered. Paul had an unconquerable passion for Art, and
his every leisure hour was spent in the endeavor to make
skill of hand keep pace with his maturing taste and knowledge;
and the necessity to conceal this, was in the complete
disapproval, by his father, of “any such unprofitable
mode of life”—a disapproval he had expressed so harshly,
at the first efforts of the boy's pencil, that it was evidently
a choice between concealment and an open opposition, of
which the mother well knew the consequences. The college

education of her boy depended on the possibility, to
the father's mind, that he would be a preacher of the Gospel;
and with even the probability of this removed by any
avowed determination to become an artist, the inevitable
result would be an apprenticeship at once to business. To
the view of the stern and orthodox hardware merchant,
the profession of an artist was, in the first place, learned
by studies verging on immorality, and, in the next place, it
was one of small and uncertain profit. His decision on
such a point, if left passive, would simply be never modified
nor reversed—if made active, by argument or open
disregard, would be aggravated to extremities. And thus
had been made necessary, to the mind of Mrs. Fane, a system
of concealment hitherto practised with success, and
by which her boy had followed the usual course of education
openly, but with a twin pursuit of the study of Art
in secret.

The lamp was arranged with its shade, for the hour
or two of reading which it helped to borrow from the
night, and Paul, closing the door and receiving then
his mother's kiss of welcome, sat down to his confessional
of love. With her hand clasped in his, he made
the tender inquiries as to her own passing of the time,
her spirits for the evening, her visitors and her books,
and then went on to tell her of his engagements for the
day, its occurrences, etc. He had come last from a gay

party at the Cleverlys, given to some strangers who had
brought letters to them as bankers; and of these and
of his acquaintances who were present, he gave sketches
with his usual graphic power, and of the festivities and
what he had seen ludicrous or beautiful. The town
clock struck one, as he came to a pause in his descriptions;
and his startled mother, rising and taking his
forehead between her hands, impressed a good-night kiss
upon it, with a murmured “God bless you,” reminded
him of his need of rest, and passed out at the noiselessly
opened door. But there was a door shut upon her, at
that same moment, which she knew not of—a withheld
confidence in her son's heart—the first thought that had
ever faltered before her searching eyes, but which had
just now been refused utterance at his lips, though he
scarce knew why—and, to a far-reaching turn of his life,
and to much that by even his mother was never wholly
understood, and by others wholly misinterpreted, that
unvoiced emotion was the key.