u cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the
extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever
cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee,
and thy days be long in the land.'

"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable
old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that
flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a
positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural
grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised,
and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of
each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success,
until to-day--at this auction."

Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where
the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who,
looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they
had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer
there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the
throng.

"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless
had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with
which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears,
drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the
portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting
whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the
whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated
and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] A kind of bazaar or perpetual market, where second-hand furniture,
old books and pictures, earthenware, and other cheap commodities, are
exposed for sale in small open booths.

[25] A personage who figures, like two or three others afterwards
alluded to, in the popular legends and fairy tales of Russia.

[26] Twenty-five rubles.

[27] A silver coin, about the size of a shilling, the quarter of a
silver ruble (_und e nomen_) worth ninepence.

[28] The officer commanding the police of the quarter.

[29] The Russian house-spirit. This "lubber fiend" is frequently the
popular name of the nightmare.

[30] The "was-ist-das," a single pane of glass fixed in a frame, to
admit of its being opened, very necessary in a climate whe