loquence of books, paintings,
and statues hung like a solemn spell, seemed in such deep quietude, I
started at the light echo of my own footsteps.

I stole with guilty consciousness towards the picture, in whose
lineaments the fastidious eye of Ernest Linwood had traced a similitude
to mine. They were all engraven on my memory, but now they possessed a
new fascination; and I stood before it, gazing into the soft, dark
depths of the eyes, in which innocent mildness and bashful tenderness
were mingled like the _clare-obscure_ of an Italian moonlight; gazing on
the dawning smile that seemed to play over the beautiful and glowing
lips, and the bright, rich, dark hair, so carelessly, gracefully
arranged you could almost see the balmy breezes of her native clime
rustling amid the silken tresses; on the charming contour of the head
and neck, slightly turned as if about to look back and give a parting
glance at the garden she had reluctantly quitted.

As I thus stood, with my hands loaded with blossoms, a flower basket
suspended from my arm, and a straw hat such as shepherdesses wear, on my
head,--my garden costume,--involuntarily imitating the attitude of the
lovely flower girl, the door, which had been left ajar, silently opened,
and Ernest Linwood entered.

Had I been detected in the act of stealing or counterfeiting money, I
could not have felt more intense shame. He knew what brought me there. I
saw it in his penetrating eye, his half-suppressed smile; and, ready to
sink with mortification, I covered my face with the roses I held in my
hands.

"Do you admire the picture?" he asked, advancing to where I stood; "do
you perceive the resemblance?"

I shook my head without answering; I was too much disconcerted to speak.
What would he think of my despicable vanity, my more than childish
foolishness?

"I am glad to see we have congenial tastes," he said, with a smile in
his voice. "I came on purpose to gaze on that charming representation of
youth and innocence, without dreaming that its original was by it."

"Original!" I repeated. "Surely you do mock me,--'t is but a fancy
sketch,--and in nought but youth and flowers resembles me."

"We cannot see ourselves, and it is well we cannot. The image reflected
from the mirror is but a cold, faint shadow of the living, breathing
soul. But why this deep confusion,--that averted face and downcast eye?
Have I offended by my intrusion? Do you wish me to withdraw, and yield
to yo