And so she thrust her frail bark boldly out upon the tide, hoping and expecting that somewhere and sometime the Friendly Islands would be reached.  She would spend her last sou in educating her boys, and she knew, she said, that when that was gone, God would give them the power and inclination to care for her and provide for themselves.  In short, she tumbled her whole basket of bread upon the waters, fully confident that it would come back buttered.  Her object in moving to Paris was that her boys could acquire French, the language of learning, and also that they might be taught art.

And so they moved to the great, strange world of Paris—­Paris the gay, Paris the magnificent, Paris that laughs and leers and sees men and women go down to death, and still laughs on.

They lived, away up and up in a tenement-house, in two little rooms.  There was no servant, and the boys took hold cheerfully to do the housekeeping, for the mother wasn’t so very strong.

The first thing was to acquire the French language, and if you live in Paris the task is easy.  You just have to—­that’s all.

Madame Scheffer was an artist of some little local repute in the village where they had lived, and she taught her boys the rudiments of drawing.

Ariel was always called Ary.  When he grew to manhood he adopted this pet name his mother had playfully given him.  He used to call her “Little Mother.”  Shortly after reaching Paris, Ary was placed in the studio of M. Guerin.  Arnold showed a liking for the Oriental languages, and was therefore allowed to follow the bent of his mind.  Henry waxed fat on the crumbs of learning that Ary brought home.

And so they lived and worked and studied; very happy, with only now and then twinges of fear for the future, for it would look a little black at times, do all they could to laugh away the clouds.  It was a little democracy of four, with high hopes and lofty ideals.  Mutual tasks and mutual hardships bound them together in a love that was as strong as it was tender and sweet.

Two years of Paris life had gone by, and the little fund that had not been augmented by a single franc in way of income had dwindled sadly.

In six months it was gone.

They were penniless.

The mother sold her wedding-ring and the brooch her husband had given her before they were married.

Then the furniture went to the pawnbroker’s, piece by piece.

One day Ary came bounding up the stairs, three steps at a time.  He burst into the room and tossed into his mother’s lap fifty francs.

When he got his breath he explained that he had sold his first picture.

Ary, the elder boy, was eighteen; Henri, the younger, was thirteen.  “It was just like a play, you see,” said Ary Scheffer, long years afterward.  “When things get desperate enough they have to mend—­they must.  The pictures I painted were pretty bad, but I really believe they were equal to many that commanded large prices, and I succeeded in bringing a few buyers around to my views.  Genius may starve in a garret, if alone; but the genius that would let its best friends starve, too, being too modest to press its claims, is a little lacking somewhere.”