So it was settled. And her work was around and within the old
"natural-colored" house, whose walls by this time were half-embowered in
vines. There was gay sunshine without and within. And the lichen was
yellow that grew on the deeply sloping roof, and we liked to plant
hollyhocks and sunflowers by the side of the quaint old building, while
scarlet honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers and gay convolvuli gladdened
the front porch.
There was but one question that was left to be disputed between us.
Margaret still believed I was an artist, all-undeveloped.
"Those sunbeams"--
"I had nothing to do with them. They married golden threads that seemed
kindred to them."
"It is not true. Sunbeams cannot exist without the sun. Your magnetic
power, perhaps, attracted the true sunbeam, and you recreated others."
She fancies, if I would only devote myself to Art, I might become an
American Murillo, and put a Madonna upon canvas.
But before we carried the new sunshine into the old house, I had been
summoned again by Mr. Clarkson. Another wonderful piece of carpeting had
gone out from the works, discovered by our agent before it had left our
warehouse.
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