Though an indifferent painting, the picture was elaborately like the sitter.  The pointed oval of the face had been faithfully drawn, and its straight nose and small brown eyes were set characteristically in the head.  Remembering a photograph of his daughter, Mr. Innes fetched it from the other end of the room, and stood with it under the portrait, so that he could compare both faces, feature by feature.  Evelyn’s face was rounder, her eyes were not deep-set like her mother’s; they lay nearly on the surface, pools of light illuminating a very white and flower-like complexion.  The nose was short and high; the line of the chin deflected, giving an expression of wistfulness to the face in certain aspects.  Her father was still bent in examination of the photograph when she entered.  It was very like her, and at first sight Nature revealed only two more significant facts:  her height—­she was a tall girl—­and a beautiful undulation in her walk, occasioned by the slight droop in her shoulders.  She was dressed in dark green woollen, with a large hat to match.

“Well, darling! and how have you been getting on?”

The vague pathos of his grey face was met by the bright effusion of hers, and throwing her arms about him, she kissed him on the cheek.

“Pretty well, dear; pretty well.”

“Only pretty well,” she answered reproachfully.  “No one has been here to interrupt you; you have had all the afternoon for finishing that virginal, and you’ve only been getting on ‘pretty well.’  But I see your necktie has come undone.”

Then overlooking him from head to foot—­

“Well, you have been making a day of it.”

“Oh, these are my old clothes—­that is glue; don’t look at me—­I had an accident with the glue-pot; and that’s paint.  Yes; I must get some new shirts, these won’t hold a button any longer.”

The conversation paused a few seconds, then running her finger down the keys, she said—­

“But it goes admirably.”

“Yes; I’ve finished it now; it is an exquisite instrument.  I could not leave it till it was finished.”

“Then what are you complaining of, darling?  Has Father Gordon been here?  Has he discovered any new Belgian composer, and does he want all his music to be given at St. Joseph’s?”

“No; Father Gordon hasn’t been here, and as for the Belgian composers, there are none left; he has discovered them all.”

“Then you’ve been thinking about me, about my voice.  That’s it,” she said, catching sight of her own photograph.  “You’ve been frowning over that photograph, thinking”—­her eyes went up to her mother’s portrait—­“all sorts of nonsense, making yourself miserable, reproaching yourself that you do not teach me to vocalise, a thing which you know nothing about, or lamenting that you are not rich enough to send me abroad, where I could be taught it.”  Then, with a pensive note in her voice which did not escape him, she said—­