Then, when they got home,
she showed the much-talked-of-seal to her father in evidence of the
sagacity of her views. The father, in the depth of his heart, wondered
at the skill and acumen of girls who act on instinct, discerning the
simplicity of the scheme which her idealized love had suggested in the
course of a single night to his guileless daughter.
"You will see the masterpiece I have just bought; it is to be brought
home, and that dear Wenceslas is to come with the dealer.--The man who
made that group ought to make a fortune; only use your influence to
get him an order for a statue, and rooms at the Institut----"
"How you run on!" cried her father. "Why, if you had your own way, you
would be man and wife within the legal period--in eleven days----"
"Must we wait so long?" said she, laughing. "But I fell in love with
him in five minutes, as you fell in love with mamma at first sight.
And he loves me as if we had known each other for two years. Yes," she
said in reply to her father's look, "I read ten volumes of love in his
eyes. And will not you and mamma accept him as my husband when you see
that he is a man of genius? Sculpture is the greatest of the Arts,"
she cried, clapping her hands and jumping.
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