‘That is no subject for rejoicing, girl,’ he doggedly observed.

’I have been looking forward to this period with intense anxiety, meaning then to make you acquainted with a subject which has long engrossed my thoughts,’ she timidly said.

‘No foolish love affair, I hope?’ Beaufort almost fiercely demanded, looking sternly in his daughter’s agitated and flushed countenance as he uttered the words.  ‘Perhaps,’ he sarcastically continued, without giving her time to reply—­’perhaps you deem yourself marriageable at the matron-like’ age of nineteen, and have selected some country boor for my son-in-law?’

This speech was directed at Herbert Lyddiard, and Amy felt it; but her thoughts were at this moment occupied by another subject of absorbing interest.  ‘No,’ she returned with modest dignity; ’I have at present no desire to alter my condition, but I have for years been intent upon bettering yours.  I may be presumptuous in supposing it possible that any effort of mine could do so; but I was resolved to make the trial, and this shall speak for me.’  As she concluded, she drew from a closet the picture she had so anxiously prepared, and displayed it to her parent’s astonished gaze.  Beaufort could not speak, but stood for some minutes immovable, with his eyes fixed on the piece, as if doubting the reality of what he beheld.

‘Amy,’ he exclaimed, ‘is it possible that this is your performance?’

‘It is, father.’

‘And you have had no teacher?’

’Yes, you have been, my teacher.  For eight long years I have been your pupil—­a silent but a most attentive pupil.  I owe all my knowledge to you.’

‘It is admirable,’ he murmured, ’and the very thing I want; as like my execution as if I myself had done it.’

‘Do you say so, my father?’ Amy exultingly exclaimed.  ’Do you say so?  That is praise beyond what I had ever dared to hope for;’ and, for the first time in her life, she threw herself into her parent’s embrace.

Beaufort re-examined the work.  ’Did you intend it to pair my Prospero and Miranda?’ he asked.

’I did, though not with the idea of its ever being sold as such.  I greatly admired your father and daughter, and thought I would attempt a similar piece.  I thought, to’—­she stopped for a moment, then blushingly added—­’I thought it an appropriate offering from one who desires to be a Cordelia to you.’

The sale of his daughter’s picture was a fresh era in the life of the artist, as it was the means of introducing him to several persons of rank and influence, who were at the time visitors at the house of the purchaser.  Though Amy’s picture was more highly finished than her father’s, no one guessed that the Lear and Cordelia, and the Prospero and Miranda were not done by the same hand.  Amy had caught her father’s bold style, but added to it a delicate softness which he, from impatience, not want of ability, usually omitted.  The calls