asked she.

"In mine? None," replied Walter, examining it. "But let me see. Yes;
there is a slight change--an improvement, I think, in the picture,
though none in the likeness. It has a livelier expression than
yesterday, as if some bright thought were flashing from the eyes and
about to be uttered from the lips. Now that I have caught the look, it
becomes very decided."

While he was intent on these observations Elinor turned to the
painter. She regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that he repaid
her with sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore she could but
vaguely guess.

"That look!" whispered she, and shuddered. "How came it there?"

"Madam," said the painter, sadly, taking her hand and leading her
apart, "in both these pictures I have painted what I saw. The
artist--the true artist--must look beneath the exterior. It is his
gift--his proudest, but often a melancholy one--to see the inmost
soul, and by a power indefinable even to himself to make it glow or
darken upon the canvas in glances that express the thought and
sentiment of years. Would that I might convince myself of error in the
present instance!"

They had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk, hands
almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church-towers, thatched
cottages, old thunder-stricken trees, Oriental and antique costume,
and all such picturesque vagaries of an artist's idle moments. Turning
them over with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketch of two figures
was disclosed.

"If I have failed," continued he--"if your heart does not see itself
reflected in your own portrait, if you have no secret cause to trust
my delineation of the other--it is not yet too late to alter them. I
might change the action of these figures too. But would it influence
the event?" He directed her notice to the sketch.

A thrill ran through Elinor's frame; a shriek was upon her lips, but
she stifled it with the self-command that becomes habitual to all who
hide thoughts of fear and anguish within their bosoms. Turning from
the table, she perceived that Walter had advanced near enough to have
seen the sketch, though she could not determine whether it had caught
his eye.

"We will not have the pictures altered," said she, hastily. "If mine
is sad, I shall but look the gayer for the contrast."

"Be it so," answered the painter, bowing. "May your griefs be such
fanciful ones that only your pictures may mourn for them! For your
joy