oice of the mother, crying--"Oh, never mind that! that is not
necessary! I see, too, you have got a--here, for instance, and here,
see!--a kind of yellowish--and here and there you have, as it were,
little dark places." The artist explained that the dark and yellow tones
relieved the face, and gave a delicacy to the flesh-tints. But the
notion was scouted. He was informed that Lise had not slept well, that
there was usually no yellowness at all in her face, which struck every
body by its freshness of complexion. Sadly and reluctantly Tchartkoff
began to efface what he had taken such pains to produce. With it there
vanished of course much of the resemblance. He now began, with a feeling
of indifference, to throw over the whole a more commonplace and
hackneyed colouring, the red and white, devoid of vigour, which each
daubster has at his command. The obnoxious tint was effaced, and the
mamma was delighted. She only expressed her surprise that the work went
on so slowly. She had heard, she said, that he could completely finish a
portrait in two sittings. The ladies rose and prepared to go away.
Tchartkoff laid down his pencil, conducted them to the door, and then,
returning, stood for a while before his portrait, regretting the
delicate lines, the half-tints and airy tones, so happily caught and
pitilessly effaced. With these recollections vivid in his mind, he put
aside the portrait, and looked for a study, which had been long
abandoned, of a head of Psyche, an idea he had some time before thrown
sketchily on the canvass. It was a pretty little countenance, cleverly
and rapidly painted, but quite ideal, cold and hard, devoid of life and
reality. Scarcely knowing why, he began to work at this, endeavouring to
communicate to it all he could remember of the countenance of his
aristocratic sitter. Psyche grew more and more animated; the type of the
young fashionable lady's countenance was by degrees mingled with hers,
at the same time acquiring an expression which gave it originality and
character. Tchartkoff was able to avail himself, both in the details and
in the general effect, of all that he had obtained from his sitter, and
to incorporate it with his work. During several days he laboured hard at
his Psyche. He was still busy with it when he was interrupted by the
arrival of his former visitors. The picture was on the easel. Both
ladies uttered a cry of admiration, and clapped their hands.

"Lise! Lise! Oh, how like! _Sup