Shy young men who work like mules are as thick as hops in any art center; but shy young men who are immensely talented, who have a genius for steady labor, and who at the same time have not only the inclination but the opportunity to be generous, are not numerous anywhere.

Peter Champneys never talked about himself, made no parade, was so simple in his tastes that he spent very little upon himself, and while he could say “No” to impudence, he had ever a quick, warm “Yes” for need.  That he should be able to become an artist had been the top of his dream; that by a very little self-denial he could help others to remain artists, left him large-eyed at his own good fortune.  He experienced the glowing happiness that only the generous can know.

On Sundays he went to see Emma Campbell, for whom he had found a little house on the summit of Montmartre, on the very top of the Butte.  It had a hillside garden, with a dove-cote in it, and a little kiosk in which Emma liked to sit, with the cat Satan on her lap, and projeck at the strange world in which she found herself.  She shared the house with a scene-painter and his wife, and as the scene-painter was an Englishman, Emma could talk to somebody and be understood.  Emma’s idea of happiness was leisure to sew squares of patchwork together for quilts.  She had brought her cut-out quilt scraps with her, and she sat in the kiosk and sewed little pieces of colored calico together, while the big cat scampered about the garden, or lay and blinked at her, and all Paris lay spread out far below, the spires of Notre Dame showing as through a mist.

On Sundays she cooked for Peter,—­old homely Riverton dishes,—­and waited on him while he ate.  Because she couldn’t read, she looked forward to Peter’s reading what she reverently called “de Book.”  Peter had been reading the Bible to old darkies all his life, and he accepted it as a matter of course that he should take the long climb, and give up a part of his Sundays, to save Emma Campbell from being disappointed now.  Afterward, Emma spoke of his mother, and of old, familiar things they both remembered.  Then he went back to the Quartier feeling as refreshed and rested as if he’d had a swim in the river “over home.”

At regular intervals he appeared at Mrs. Hemingway’s, and kept up his acquaintance with her friends.  When she told him to accept an invitation, he resignedly obeyed, looking, the elder of the Checkleigh boys told him, as if he were doing it for God’s sake.  He was beginning to speak French less villainously, and this made things easier for him.  He could carry on a simple conversation, by going slowly; and he almost understood about half of what strangers said to him.  He interested one or two fine ladies greatly, and they were extremely gracious to him.  Artists—­that is, young and unknown artists in the Quartier—­are more or less pleasant to read about in the pages of Muerger and others, but they are too often beggarly and quite impossible