upon his countenance; and a very pretty art it is--the _viva voce_
story-teller's--and a rare one among the nations of Europe.

Christie had not learned it in a day; when she began, she used to tell
them like the other Newhaven people, with a noble impartiality of detail,
wearisome to the hearer.

But latterly she had learned to seize the salient parts of a narrative;
her voice had compass, and, like all fine speakers, she traveled over a
great many notes in speaking; her low tones were gorgeously rich, her
upper tones full and sweet; all this, and her beauty, made the hours she
gave him very sweet to our poor artist.

He was wont to bask in her music, and tell her in return how he loved
her, and how happy they were both to be as soon as he had acquired a
name, for a name was wealth, he told her. And although Christie Johnstone
did not let him see how much she took all this to heart and believed it,
it was as sweet music to her as her own honeysuckle breath to him.

She improved him.

He dropped cigars, and medical students, and similar abominations.

Christie's cool, fresh breath, as she hung over him while painting,
suggested to him that smoking might, peradventure, be a sin against
nature as well as against cleanliness.

And he improved her; she learned from art to look into nature (the usual
process of mind).