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the case with our first parents. No, I am wrong--at least only partly
right. The line was drawn at apples, just as in the present case, but it
was from the other direction." The new clothes gave him a thrill of
pleasure and pride. He said to himself, "I've got part of him down to
date, anyway."
Sellers said he was pleased with Tracy's work; and he went on and engaged
him to restore his old masters, and said he should also want him to paint
his portrait and his wife's and possibly his daughter's. The tide of the
artist's happiness was at flood, now. The chat flowed pleasantly along
while Tracy painted and Sellers carefully unpacked a picture which he had
brought with him. It was a chromo; a new one, just out. It was the
smirking, self-satisfied portrait of a man who was inundating the Union
with advertisements inviting everybody to buy his specialty, which was a
three-dollar shoe or a dress-suit or something of that kind. The old
gentleman rested the chromo flat upon his lap and gazed down tenderly
upon it, and became silent and meditative. Presently Tracy noticed that
he was dripping tears on it. This touched the young fellow's sympathetic
nature, and at the same time gave him the painful sense of being an
intruder upon a sacred privacy, an observer of emotions which a stranger
ought not to witness. But his pity rose superior to other
considerations, and compelled him to try to comfort the old mourner with
kindly words and a show of friendly interest. He said:
"I am very sorry--is it a friend whom--"
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