pathizing look, as well as the lines in his
forehead, and a few gray hairs among the brown, gave Psyche courage to
say more.

"I love beauty so much that I not only want to possess it myself,
but to gain the power of seeing it in all things, and the art of
reproducing it with truth. I have tried very hard to do it, but
something is wanting; and in spite of my intense desire I never get
on."

As she spoke the girl's eyes filled and fell in spite of herself, and
turning a little with sudden shamefacedness she saw, lying on the
table beside her among other scraps in manuscript and print, the
well-known lines,--

"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke, and found that life was duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shall find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee."

She knew them at a glance, had read them many times, but now they came
home to her with sudden force, and, seeing that his eye had followed
hers, she said in her impulsive fashion.--

"Is doing one's duty a good way to feed heart, soul, and imagination?"

As if he had caught a glimpse of what was going on in her mind, Paul
answered emphatically,--

"Excellent; for if one is good, one is happy, and if happy, one can
work well. Moulding character is the highest sort of sculpture, and
all of us should learn that art before we touch clay or marble."

He spoke with the energy of a man who believed what he said, and did
his best to be worthy of the rich gift bestowed upon him. The sight
of her violets in a glass of water, and Giovanni staring at her with
round eyes, suddenly recalled Psyche to a sense of the proprieties
which she had been innocently outraging for the last ten minutes. A
sort of panic seized her; she blushed deeply, retreated precipitately
to the door, and vanished, murmuring thanks and apologies as she went.

"Did you find him? I thought you had forgotten," said Miss Dickenson,
now hard at work.

"Yes, I found him. No, I shall not forget," returned Psyche, thinking
of Gage, not Giovanni.

She stood before her work eying it intently for several minutes; then,
with an expression of great contempt for the whole thing, she suddenly
tilted her cherished Venus on to the floor, gave the classical face
a finishing crunch, and put on her hat in a decisive manner, saying
briefly to the dismayed damsels,--

"Good-by, girls; I shan't come any more, for I'm going to wo