want if the world held them, and surely the unbounded devotion of
one man to the support of the one woman he loves, _ought_ to suffice
for the task! I am strong--I am capable of labor--I have limbs to toil,
if my genius and my present means fail me, and, oh, Heaven! you could
not want!"

"No, no, no! I thought not of want!" murmured Miss Bellairs, "I thought
only--"

But she was not permitted to finish the sentence.

"Then my bright picture for the future _may_ be realized!" exclaimed
Philip, knitting his hands together in a transport of hope. "I may
build up a reputation, with _you_ for the constant partner of its
triumphs and excitements! I may go through the world, and have some
care in life besides subsistence, how I shall sleep, and eat, and
accumulate gold; some companion, who, from the threshold of manhood,
shared every thought--and knew every feeling--some pure and present
angel who walked with me and purified my motives and ennobled my
ambitions, and received from my lips and eyes, and from the beating of
my heart against her own, all the love I had to give in a lifetime.
Tell me, Fanny! tell me, my sweet cousin! is not this a picture of
bliss, which, combined with success in my noble art, might make a
Paradise on earth for you and me?"

The hand of Fanny Bellairs rested on the upturned forehead of her lover
as he sat at her feet in the deepening twilight, and she answered him
with such sweet words as are linked together by spells known only to
woman--but his palette and pencils were, nevertheless, burned in solemn
holocaust that very night, and the lady carried her point, as ladies
must. And, to the importation of silks from Lyons, was devoted,
thenceforth, the genius of a Raphael--perhaps! Who knows?

* * * * *

The reader will naturally have gathered from this dialogue that Miss
Fanny Bellairs had black eyes, and was rather below the middle stature.
She was a belle, and it is only belle-metal of this particular
description which is not fusible by "burning words." She had mind
enough to appreciate fully the romance and enthusiasm of her cousin,
Philip Ballister, and knew precisely the phenomena which a tall
_blonde_ (this complexion of woman being soluble in love and tears)
would have exhibited under a similar experiment. While the fire of her
love glowed, therefore, she opposed little resistance, and seemed
softened and yielding, but her purpose remained unaltered,