How beautiful! how graceful! with what touching sweetness of voice! how intellectual his expression, and how well-bred his air!—­plainly a gentleman’s son, and the son of no common gentleman!  Instinctively I drew back a pace to compare him with the child of the “specimens.”  Unquestionably the same,—­there were the superior brow, the richly clustered curls of golden brown, the painful lips, and the foreboding eyes.

“If your father painted these pretty pictures, my boy,—­yes, I would be glad to see him, if he is within.”

“He is not here at present, Sir; he went with my mother to the ship, to bring away our things.  But it is quite a long while since they went; and I think they will return presently.  Take a seat, Sir, please.”

I accepted the stool he offered,—­a canvas one, made to “unship” and fold together,—­such a patent accommodation for tired “hurdies” as amateur sketchers and promiscuous lovers of the picturesque in landscape take with them on excursions.  My accustomed eye took in at a glance the poor furniture of that very Californian make-shift of a shelter for fortune-seeking heads.  There were chests, boxes, and trunks, the usual complement, bestowed in every corner, as they could best be got out of the way,—­a small, rough table, on temporary legs, and made, like the seats, to unship and be stowed,—­several other of the same canvas stools,—­a battered chest of drawers, at present doing the duty of a cupboard,—­some kitchen utensils, and a few articles of table furniture of the plainest delft.  As for the kitchen, I had noticed, as I passed, a portable furnace for charcoal, without, and at the rear of the tent; it was plain they did their cooking in the open air.  On one side of the entrance, and near the top of the tent, a small square had been cut from the canvas, and the sides framed with slats of wood, making a sort of Rembrandtish skylight, through which some scanty rays of barbaric glory fell on an easel, with its palette, brushes, and paints.  A canvas framed, on which the ground had been laid, and the outline of a head already traced, was mounted on the easel; other such frames, as if of finished portraits with their faces turned to the wall, stood on the earthen floor, supported by a strip of wood tacked to the tent-cloth near the bottom.  On the floor, at the foot of the easel, lay an artist’s sketch-book.  A part of the tent behind was divided off from what, by way of melancholy jest, I may call the reception-room, or the studio, by a rope stretched across, from which were suspended a blanket, a travelling shawl, and a voluminous, and evidently costly, Spanish cloak.  Protruding beyond the edge of this extemporaneous screen, I could see the footposts of an iron bedstead, and the end of a large poncho, which served for a counterpane.

“Will you amuse yourself with this sketch-book, please,” said the pretty lad, “till my father comes?”

“With pleasure, my boy,—­if you are sure your father will not object.”