ng could have guided your hand in
shaping such a portrait from memory. This must be that friend of yours
of whom I have often heard as an amiable young person. Pardon me, for
you know that nobody cares more for you than I do,--I hope that you are
happy in all your relations with this young friend of yours. How could
one be otherwise?"

It was hard to bear, very hard. He forced a smile. "You are partly
right," he said. "There is a resemblance, I trust, to a living person,
for I had one in my mind."

"Didn't you tell me once, Clement, that you were attempting a bust of
Innocence? I do not see any block in your room but this. Is that done?"

"Done _with_!" Clement answered; and as he said it, the thought stung
through him that this was the very stone which was to have worn the
pleasant blandness of pretty Susan's guileless countenance. How the new
features had effaced the recollection of the others!

In a few days more Clement had finished his bust. His hours were again
vacant to his thick-coming fancies. While he had been busy with his
marble, his hands had required his attention, and he must think closely
of every detail upon which he was at work. But at length his task was
done, and he could contemplate what he had made of it. It was a triumph
for one so little exercised in sculpture. The master had told him so,
and his own eye could not deceive him. He might never succeed in any
repetition of his effort, but this once he most certainly had succeeded.
He could not disguise from himself the source of this extraordinary good
fortune in so doubtful and difficult an attempt. Nor could he resist the
desire of contemplating the portrait bust, which--it was foolish to
talk about ideals--was not Liberty, but Myrtle Hazard.

It was too nearly like the story of the ancient sculptor: his own work
was an over-match for its artist. Clement had made a mistake in
supposing that by giving his dream a material form he should drive it
from the possession of his mind. The image in which he had fixed his
recollection of its original served only to keep her living presence
before him. He thought of her as she clasped her arms around him, and
they were swallowed up in the rushing waters, coming so near to passing
into the unknown world together. He thought of her as he stretched her
lifeless form upon the bank, and looked for one brief moment on her
unsunned loveliness,--"a sight to dream of, not to tell." He thought of
her as his last