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r you, who mustn't even turn your head to look at my work." She gave a stretch, and such a yawn! Neither of them very graceful performances, had the lady been less fair and fascinating, but Nina looked exceedingly pretty in their perpetration nevertheless. "Work," she answered. "Do you call that work? Why you've undone everything you did yesterday, and put about half of it in again. If you're diligent, and keep on at this pace, you'll finish triumphantly with a blank canvas, like Penthesilea and her tapestry in my ancient history." "Penelope," corrected Simon gently. "Well, Penelope! It's all the same. I don't suppose any of it's true. Let's have a peep, Simon. It can't be. Is that really like me?" The colour had come back to her face, the light to her eye. She was pleased, flattered, half amused to find herself so beautiful. He looked from the picture to the original, and with all his enthusiasm for art awarded the palm to nature. "It _was_ like you a minute ago," said he, in his grave, gentle tones. "Or rather, I ought to say you were like _it_. But you change so, that I am often in despair of catching you, and, somehow, I always seem to love the last expression best." There was something in his voice so admiring, so reverential, and yet so tender, that she glanced quickly, with a kind of surprise, in his face; that face which to an older woman, who had known suffering and sorrow, might have been an index of the gentle heart, the noble, chivalrous character within, which, to this girl, was simply pale and worn, and not at all handsome, but very dear nevertheless, as belonging to her kind old Simon, the playmate of her childhood, the brother, and more than brother, of her youth. Those encounters are sadly unequal, and very poor fun for the muffled fighter, in which one keeps the gloves on, while the other's blows are delivered with the naked fist. Miss Algernon was at this time perhaps more attached to Simon Perkins than to any other creature in the world; that is to say, she did not happen to like anybody else better. How different from him, to whom she represented the very essence of that spiritual life which, in our several ways, we all try to live, which so few of us know how to attain by postponing its enjoyment for a few short troubled years. It is probable that, if the painter had thrown down his brush at this juncture, and asked simply, "Nina, will you be my wife?" she would have answered
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