“Studying art, I presume?” asked the Major, glancing at the easel.
“Yes,” replied Pandora; “I am an artist.”
“Is not this rather--rather a--a queer place to come to for sketches?”
“Oh, no,” said Pandora, laughing; “I came here to study anatomy for a great picture I am going to paint. You see what that is?” said she, lifting the cardboard, and showing the sketch to the Major.
“That is a--a--I should say that was a picture of--well, of the elbow of a stove-pipe. Isn’t it?”
“You are not very complimentary,” said Pandora. “I know it is very raw and unfinished; but it is at least a fair likeness of that human leg in the jar of alcohol over there.”
“Oh, of course! So it is, so it is; astonishing likeness! How stupid I am! To be sure. The very image of it.”
“Come now, I know you don’t think so! You are flattering me!”
“No, indeed. It is wonderful! But--why, bless my soul, what on earth do you want a picture of such a thing as that for?”
“For my great painting,” said Pandora, with a pretty little laugh. “I am preparing a picture, thirty-eight feet by twenty-seven feet, of George Washington cutting down his father’s cherry-tree with his little hatchet.”
“I expect to sell it to the Government, and to have it placed among the other historical pictures in the rotunda of the Capitol.”
“But you are not going to put this leg in the picture?”
“Yes; I represent George as being barefooted, and having one trouser-leg rolled up.”
“But then, I don’t exactly see how--well, but George was a boy, and this is a man’s leg.”
“I know, but I am drawing all the figures on a heroic scale.”
“Ah!” said the Major. Then he added, “But I must bid you good morning.”
“I shall be very glad to have you come to see me,” said Pandora.
“I assure you it will give me much pleasure to do so,” answered the Major, with a feeling of exultation.
When Pandora reached home, she showed Major Dunwoody’s card to her mother, and told her of the adventure at the Museum.
Mrs. M’Duffy sat upon the sofa and listened. She was a woman of distinguished appearance; of large frame, not corpulent, but rounded rather more than positive beauty seemed to require. Having the carriage of a queen, with a finely-shaped head, a strongly-defined chin, held well up, an aquiline nose, and piercing black eyes, Mrs. M’Duffy impressed the observer with a sense of power. The mother of the Gracchi might have been such a woman. If Mrs. M’Duffy had been born to a throne, she would have left her impress distinctly upon the history of nations.