“One day, however, she plucked up courage: 

“I would like to see how you paint pictures.  Are you willing?  I have been very curious.’

“And she blushed as if she had said something very audacious.

“I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had begun a large picture.

“She remained standing behind me, following all my gestures with concentrated attention.  Then, suddenly, fearing perhaps that she was disturbing me, she said:  ‘Thank you,’ and walked away.

“But she soon became more friendly, and accompanied me every day, her countenance exhibiting visible pleasure.  She carried her camp stool under her arm, not permitting me to carry it.  She would remain there for hours, silent and motionless, following with her eyes the point of my brush, in its every movement.  When I obtained unexpectedly just the effect I wanted by a dash of color put on with the palette knife, she involuntarily uttered a little ‘Ah!’ of astonishment, of joy, of admiration.  She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature’s work divine.  My studies appeared to her a kind of religious pictures, and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting me.

“Oh, he was a queer, good-natured being, this God of hers!  He was a sort of village philosopher without any great resources and without great power, for she always figured him to herself as inconsolable over injustices committed under his eyes, as though he were powerless to prevent them.

“She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be the confidante of his secrets and of his troubles.  She would say: 

“‘God wills’ or ‘God does not will,’ just like a sergeant announcing to a recruit:  ‘The colonel has commanded.’

“At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions of the Eternal, which she endeavored to impart to me.

“Almost every day I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my paintbox, in my polished shoes, standing in front of my door in the morning, those little pious tracts which she no doubt, received directly from Paradise.

“I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality.  But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner, though, for a while, I paid little attention to it.

“When I was painting, whether in my valley or in some country lane, I would see her suddenly appear with her rapid, springy walk.  She would then sit down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running or were overcome by some profound emotion.  Her face would be red, that English red which is denied to the people of all other countries; then, without any reason, she would turn ashy pale and seem about to faint away.  Gradually, however, her natural color would return and she would begin to speak.