He is very wealthy, and excessively selfish. I
call this, 'LORD, _I_ THANK THEE THAT I AM NOT AS OTHER MEN'."
Vergniaud laughed as he looked,--he knew the pictured dignitary
well. The smooth countenance, the little eyes comfortably sunken in
small rolls of fat, the smug smiling lips, the gross neck and heavy
jaw,--marks of high feeding and prosperous living,--and above all
the perfectly self-satisfied and mock-pious air of the man,--these
points were given with the firm touch of a master's brush, and the
Abbe, after studying the picture closely, turned to Angela with a
light yet deferential bow.
"Chere Sovrani, you are stronger than ever! Surely you have improved
much since you were last in Paris? Your strokes are firmer, your
grasp is bolder. Have your French confreres seen your work this
year?"
"No," replied Angela, "I am resolved they shall see nothing till my
picture is finished."
"May one ask why?"
A flash of disdain passed over the girl's face.
"For a very simple reason! They take my ideas and use them,--and
then, when my work is produced they say it is _I_ who have copied
from THEM, and that women have no imagination! I have been cheated
once or twice in that way,--this time no one has any idea what I am
doing.
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