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