CHAPTER XXIX.

moved him strangely. He had an intense desire to know how it was done, and a vague consciousness that he could do work of the same kind if he could find an instructor. The instructor he soon found in a German living in the city, who made plaster casts and busts, and from him he learned the secret of the art. He proved an apt pupil, and surprised his teacher by his proficiency. His first effort at modeling from life was the bust of a little daughter of Mr. John P. Foote. She sat to him during the hours he could spare from his regular work. His model was made of beeswax, as he was afraid that clay would freeze or stiffen. His success encouraged him very greatly. > "I found I had a correct eye," said he, "and a hand which steadily improved in its obedience to my eye. I saw the likeness, and knew it depended on the features, and that, if I could copy the features exactly, the likeness would follow just as surely as the blood follows the knife. I found early that all the talk about catching the expression was mere twaddle; the expression would take care of itself if I copied the features