her.'

'No! now, now!'

IV

'Well, Mr. Aylwin,' said Wilderspin, 'when I first saw your father's
book, _The Veiled Queen_, it was the vignette on the title-page
that attracted me. In the eyes of that beautiful child-face, even as
rendered by a small reproduction, there was the very expression that
my soul had been yearning after--the expression which no painter of
woman's beauty had ever yet caught and rendered. I felt that he who
could design or suggest to a designer such a vignette must be
inspired, and I bought the book: it was as an artist, not as a
thinker, that I bought the book for the vignette. When, on reading
it, I came to understand the full meaning of the design, such sweet
comfort and hope did the writer's words give me, that I knew at once
who had impressed me to read it--I knew that my mission in life was
to give artistic development to the sublime ideas of Philip Aylwin.
I began the subject of "Faith and Love." But the more I tried to
render the expression that had fascinated me the more impossible did
the task seem to me. Howsoever imaginative may be any design, the
painter who would produce a living picture must paint from life, and
then he has to fight against his model's expression. Do you remember
my telling you the other day how the spirit of Mary Wilderspin in
heaven came upon me in my sore perplexity and blessed me--sent me a
spiritual body--led me out into the street, and--'

'Yes, yes, I remember; but what happened?'

'We will sit,' said Wilderspin.

He placed chairs for us, and I perceived that my mother did not
intend to go.

'Well,' he continued, 'on that sunny morning I was impressed to
leave my studio and go out into the streets. It was then that I found
what I had been seeking,--the expression in the beautiful child-face
off the vignette.'

'In the street!' I heard my mother say to herself. 'How did it come
about?' she asked aloud.

'It had long been my habit to roam about the streets of London
whenever I could afford the time to do so, in the hope of finding
what I sought, the fascinating and indescribable expression on that
one lovely child-face. Sometimes I believed that I had found this
expression. I have followed women for miles, traced them home,
introduced myself to them, told them of my longings; and have then,
after all, come away in bitter disappointment. The insults and
revilings I have, on these occasions, sometimes submitted to I will
narrate to no ma