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).
She had noticed too little the flickering gold of the leaves at evening, the purple hills, and the shifting stories and glories of the sky; but now, whatever she saw him try to imitate, she learned to examine.

She was a woman, and admired sunset, etc., for this boy's sake, and her whole heart expanded with a new sensation that softened her manner to all the world, and brightened her personal rays.
This charming picture of mutual affection had hitherto been admired only by those who figured in it.
But a visitor had now arrived on purpose to inspect it, etc., attracted by report.
A friend had considerately informed Mrs.Gatty, the artist's mother, and she had instantly started from Newcastle.
This was the old lady Christie discovered on the stairs.
Her sudden appearance took her son's breath away.
No human event was less likely than that she should be there, yet there she was.
After the first surprise and affectionate greetings, a misgiving crossed him, "she must know about the writ"-- it was impossible; but our minds are so constituted--when we are guilty, we fear that others know what we know.

Now Gatty was particularly anxious she should not know about this writ, for he had incurred the debt by acting against her advice.
Last year he commenced a picture in which was Durham Cathedral; his mother bade him stay quietly at home, and paint the cathedral and its banks from a print, "as any other painter would," observed she.
But this was not the lad's system; he spent five months on the spot, and painted his picture, but he had to borrow sixty pounds to do this; the condition of this loan was, that in six months he should either pay eighty pounds, or finish and hand over a certain half-finished picture.
He did neither; his new subject thrust aside his old one, and he had no money, ergo, his friend, a picture-dealer, who had found artists slippery in money matters, followed him up sharp, as we see.
"There is nothing the matter, I hope, mother.

What is it ?" "I'm tired, Charles." He brought her a seat; she sat down.
"I did not come from Newcastle, at my age, for nothing; you have formed an improper acquaintance." "I, who?
Is it Jack Adams ?" "Worse than any Jack Adams!" "Who can that be?
Jenkyns, mother, because he does the same things as Jack, and pretends to be religious." "It is a female--a fishwife.

Oh, my son!" "Christie Johnstone an improper acquaintance," said he; "why! I was good for nothing till I knew her; she has made me so good, mother; so steady, so industrious; you will never have to find fault with me again." "Nonsense--a woman that sells fish in the streets!" "But you have not seen her.