Here the girlish student was intensely interested in her work.  She rose early, before the other members of the family, taking her breakfast alone, that she might hasten to her beloved labor.  “On the day when she did not work with him,” says Mrs. Meynell, “she copied passages from the frescoes in the cloisters of the Annunziata, masterpieces of Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio, making a special study of the drapery of the last-named painter.  The sacristans of the old church—­the most popular church in Florence—­knew and welcomed the young English girl, who sat for hours so intently at her work in the cloister, unheeding the coming and going of the long procession of congregations passing through the gates.

“Her studies in the galleries were also full of delight and profit, though she made no other copies, and she was wont to say that of all the influences of the Florentine school which stood her in good stead in her after-work, that of Andrea del Sarto was the most valuable and the most important.  The intense heat of a midsummer, which, day after day, showed a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, could not make her relax work, and her master, Florentine as he was, was obliged to beg her to spare him, at least for a week, if she would not spare herself.  It was toward the end of October that artist and pupil parted, his confidence in her future being as unbounded as her gratitude for his admirable skill and minute carefulness.”

During her seven months in Rome she painted, in 1870, for an ecclesiastical art exhibition, opened by Pope Pius IX., in the cloisters of the Carthusian Monastery, the “Visitation of the Blessed Virgin to St. Elizabeth,” and the picture gained honorable mention.

On her return to England the painting was offered to the Royal Academy and rejected.  And what was worse still, a large hole had been torn in the canvas, in the sky of the picture.  Had she not been very persevering, and believed in her heart that she had talent, perhaps she would not have dared to try again, but she had worked steadily for too many years to fail now.  Those only win who can bear refusal a thousand times if need be.

The next year, being at the Isle of Wight, she sent another picture to the Academy, and it was rejected.  Merit does not always win the first, nor the second, nor the third time.  It must have been a little consolation to Elizabeth Thompson, to know that each year the judges were reminded that a person by that name lived, and was painting pictures!

The next year a subject from the Franco-Prussian War was taken, as that was fresh in the minds of the people.  The title was “Missing.”  “Two French officers, old and young, both wounded, and with one wounded horse between them, have lost their way after a disastrous defeat; their names will appear in the sad roll as missing, and the manner of their death will never be known.”

The picture was received, but was “skyed,” that is, placed so high that nobody could well see it.  During this year she received a commission from a wealthy art patron to paint a picture.  What should it be?  A battle scene, because into that she could put her heart.