oved about the empty room.

It was a beautiful face: the features were very clearly cut and defined,
like--Good heavens! I had it now: it reminded me of Gladys Hamilton's.
The next moment I was holding the balcony railing as though I were giddy;
it was like Gladys, but it was still more like the closed picture in
Gladys's room. I pressed my hands on my eyelids as with a strong effort
I recalled her brother Eric's face, and the next moment the young painter
had come to the window again, and I was looking at him between my
fingers.

The resemblance could not be my fancy; those were Eric's eyes looking at
me. It was the same face, only older and less boyish-looking. The fair
moustache was fully grown; the face was altogether more manly and full of
character. It must be he; I must go and speak to him; but as I rose, my
limbs trembling with excitement, he moved away, and his whistle seemed to
die in the distance.

It was nearly six o'clock, and there was no time to be lost. I ran
upstairs and put on my bonnet and mantle. I thought that Clayton looked
at me in some surprise,--I was leaving the house without gloves; but I
did not wait for any explanation: the men would be leaving off work. The
door was open, and I quickly found my way to the drawing-room, but, to my
chagrin, it was empty, and an elderly man with gray hair came out of a
back room with a basket of carpenter's tools and looked at me
inquiringly.

'There is a workman here that I want to find,' I said breathlessly,--'the
one that was painting the window-frames just now,--a tall, fair young
man.'

'Oh, you'll be meaning Jack Poynter,' he returned civilly; 'he and his
mate have just gone.'

'It cannot be the one I mean,' I answered, somewhat perplexed at this.
'He was very young, not more than three-or four-and-twenty, good-looking,
with a fair moustache, and he was whistling while he worked.'

'Ay, that's Jack Poynter,' returned the man, taking off his paper cap and
rubbing up his bristly gray hair. 'We call Jack "The Blackbird" among us;
he is a famous whistler, is Jack.'

'Oh, but that is not his name,' I persisted, in a distressed voice. 'Why
do you call him Jack Poynter?'

'That is what he calls himself,' returned the man drily. Evidently he
thought my remarks a little odd. 'Folks mostly calls themselves by their
own names; among his mates he is known as "The Whistler," or "The
Blackbird," or "Gentleman Jack."'

'Well, never mind about his name,' I