vases she sought were not there.

She straightened herself, and looked around. In a further corner,
partly concealed by a Cairo screen, stood another pile. Jane went to
them.

Almost immediately she found the two she wanted; larger than the rest,
and distinguishable at a glance by the soft black gown of the central
figure.

Without giving them more than a passing look, she carried them over to
the western window, and placed them in a good light. Then she drew up
the chair in which she had been sitting; took the little brass bear in
her left hand, as a talisman to help her through what lay before her;
turned the second picture with its face to the easel; and sat down to
the quiet contemplation of the first.

The noble figure of a woman, nobly painted, was the first impression
which leapt from eye to brain. Yes, nobility came first, in stately
pose, in uplifted brow, in breadth of dignity. Then--as you marked the
grandly massive figure, too well-proportioned to be cumbersome, but
large and full, and amply developed; the length of limb; the firmly
planted feet; the large capable hands,--you realised the second
impression conveyed by the picture, to be strength;--strength to do;
strength to be; strength to continue. Then you looked into the face.
And there you were confronted with a great surprise. The third thought
expressed by the picture was Love--love, of the highest, holiest, most
ideal, kind; yet, withal, of the most tenderly human order; and you
found it in that face.

It was a large face, well proportioned to the figure. It had no
pretensions whatever to ordinary beauty. The features were good; there
was not an ugly line about them; and yet, each one just missed the
beautiful; and the general effect was of a good-looking plainness;
unadorned, unconcealed, and unashamed. But the longer you looked, the
more desirable grew the face; the less you noticed its negations; the
more you admired its honesty, its purity, its immense strength of
purpose; its noble simplicity. You took in all these outward details;
you looked away for a moment, to consider them; you looked back to
verify them; and then the miracle happened. Into the face had stolen
the "light that never was on sea or land." It shone from the quiet grey
eyes,--as, over the head of the man who knelt before her, they looked
out of the picture--with an expression of the sublime surrender of a
woman's whole soul to an emotion which, though it sways and masters