“We shall meet again in life; girls marry—­” said Ginevra.

“When they are rich,” signed Laure.

“Come and see me; my father has a fortune—­”

“Ginevra,” continued Laure, tenderly.  “Madame Roguin and my mother are coming to see Monsieur Servin to-morrow and reproach him; hadn’t you better warn him.”

A thunderbolt falling at Ginevra’s feet could not have astonished her more than this revelation.

“What matter is it to them?” she asked, naively.

“Everybody thinks it very wrong.  Mamma says it is immoral.”

“And you, Laure, what do you say?”

The young girl looked up at Ginevra, and their thoughts united.  Laure could no longer keep back her tears; she flung herself on her friend’s breast and sobbed.  At this moment Servin came into the studio.

“Mademoiselle Ginevra,” he cried, with enthusiasm, “I have finished my picture! it is now being varnished.  What have you been doing, meanwhile?  Where are the young ladies; are they taking a holiday, or are they in the country?”

Laure dried her tears, bowed to Monsieur Servin, and went away.

“The studio has been deserted for some days,” replied Ginevra, “and the young ladies are not coming back.”

“Pooh!”

“Oh! don’t laugh,” said Ginevra.  “Listen:  I am the involuntary cause of the loss of your reputation—­”

The artist smiled, and said, interrupting his pupil:—­

“My reputation?  Why, in a few days my picture will make it at the Exposition.”

“That relates to your talent,” replied the girl.  “I am speaking of your morality.  Those young ladies have told their mothers that Luigi was shut up here, and that you lent yourself—­to—­our love.”

“There is some truth in that, mademoiselle,” replied the professor.  “The mothers of those young ladies are foolish women; if they had come straight to me I should have explained the matter.  But I don’t care a straw about it!  Life is short, anyhow.”

And the painter snapped his fingers above his head.  Luigi, who had heard part of the conversation, came in.

“You have lost all your scholars,” he cried.  “I have ruined you!”

The artist took Luigi’s hand and that of Ginevra, and joined them.

“Marry one another, my children,” he said, with fatherly kindness.

They both dropped their eyes, and their silence was the first avowal they had made to each other of their love.

“You will surely be happy,” said Servin.  “There is nothing in life to equal the happiness of two beings like yourselves when bound together in love.”

Luigi pressed the hand of his protector without at first being able to utter a word; but presently he said, in a voice of emotion:—­

“To you I owe it all.”

“Be happy!  I bless and wed you,” said the painter, with comic unction, laying his hands upon the heads of the lovers.