the old Count loved the new time best, and what it brought, whether it came
from the first floor, or from the cellar, or from the attic.
“I think,” said, the porter’s wife, “the grander people are, the fewer airs
do they give themselves. How kind and straightforward the old count is!
and he talks exactly like you and me. Now, the General and his lady can’t
do that. And George was fairly wild with delight yesterday at the good
reception he met with at the Count’s, and so am I to-day, after speaking to
the great man. Wasn’t it a good thing that we didn’t bind George apprentice
to a handicraftsman? for he has abilities of his own.”
“But they must be helped on by others,” said the father.
“That help he has got now,” rejoined the mother; “for the Count spoke
out quite clearly and distinctly.”
“But I fancy it began with the General,” said the father, “and we must
thank them too.”
“Let us do so with all my heart,” cried the mother, “though I fancy we
have not much to thank them for. I will thank the good God; and I will
thank Him, too, for letting little Emily get well.”
Emily was getting on bravely, and George got on bravely too. In the
course of the year he won the little silver prize medal of the Academy, and
afterwards he gained the great one too.
“It would have been better, after all, if he had been apprenticed to a
handicraftsman,” said the porter’s wife, weeping; “for then we could have
kept him with us. What is he to do in Rome? I shall never get a sight of him
again, not even if he comes back; but that he won’t do, the dear boy.”
“It is fortune and fame for him,” said the father.
“Yes, thank you, my friend,” said the mother; “you are saying what you
do not mean. You are just as sorrowful as I am.”
And it was all true about the sorrow and the journey. But everybody said
it was a great piece of good fortune for the young fellow. And he had to
take leave, and of the General too. The General’s lady did not show herself,
