“How the old German went to work to keep this untamable vagabond at home, how he made her bend to his will, and submit to his lessons, no one will ever be able to tell.  It was long a problem for me also.  Some of the neighbors told me that he treated her harshly, beating her often brutally; but neither threats nor blows were apt to make an impression on Sarah Brandon.  A friend of the old man’s thought he had guessed the riddle:  he thought the old artist had succeeded in arousing Sarah’s pride.  He had kindled in her a boundless ambition and the most passionate covetousness.  He intoxicated her with fairylike hopes.

“‘Follow my counsels,’ he used to say to her, ’and at twenty you will be a queen,—­a queen of beauty, of wit, and of genius.  Study, and the day will come when you will travel through Europe, a renowned artist, welcomed in every capital, feted everywhere, honored, and glorified.  Work, and wealth will come with fame,—­immense, boundless wealth, surpassing all your dreams.  You will have the finest carriages, the most magnificent diamonds; you will draw from inexhaustible purses; the whole world will be at your feet; and the women will turn pale with envy and jealousy when they see you.  Among men there will be none so noble, none so great, none so rich, but he will beg for one of your looks; and they will fight for one of your smiles.  Only work and study!’

“At all events, Sarah did work, and studied with a steady perseverance which spoke of her faith in the promises of her old master, and of the influence he had obtained over her through her vanity.  At first she had been deterred by the extreme difficulties which beset so late a beginning; but her amazing natural gifts had soon begun to show themselves, and in a short time her progress was almost miraculous.

“It is true that her innate sagacity had made her soon find out how ignorant she was of the world.  She saw that society did not exclusively consist, as she had heretofore imagined, of people like those she had known.  She felt, for instance, what she had never suspected before, that her unfortunate mother, with all her friends and companions, were only the rare exceptions, laid under the ban by the immense majority.

“At last she actually learned to know the tree of good fruit, after having for so many years known only the tree of forbidden fruit.  She listened with eager curiosity to all the old artist had to tell her.  And he knew much; for the eccentric old man had travelled for a long time over the world, and observed man on every step of the social ladder.  He had been a favorite artist at the court of Vienna; he had had several of his operas brought out in Italy; and he had been admitted to the best society in Paris.  At night, therefore, while sipping his coffee, his feet on the andirons, and his long pipe in his mouth, he would soon forget himself amid the recollections of his youth.  He described to her the splendor of courts, the beauty of women, the magnificence of their toilets, and the intrigues which he had seen going on around him.  He spoke to her of the men whose portraits he had painted, of the manners and the jealousies behind the stage, and of the great singers who had sung in his operas.