“Nay, if he have more wonderful attributes than these,” said Elinor, laughing, “Boston is a perilous abode for the poor gentleman.  Are you telling me of a painter, or a wizard?”

“In truth,” answered he, “that question might be asked much more seriously than you suppose.  They say that he paints not merely a man’s features, but his mind and heart.  He catches the secret sentiments and passions and throws them upon the canvas like sunshine, or perhaps, in the portraits of dark-souled men, like a gleam of infernal fire.  It is an awful gift,” added Walter, lowering his voice from its tone of enthusiasm.  “I shall be almost afraid to sit to him.”

“Walter, are you in earnest?” exclaimed Elinor.

“For Heaven’s sake, dearest Elinor, do not let him paint the look which you now wear,” said her lover, smiling, though rather perplexed.  “There! it is passing away now; but when you spoke, you seemed frightened to death, and very sad besides.  What were you thinking of?”

“Nothing, nothing!” answered Elinor, hastily.  “You paint my face with your own fantasies.  Well, come for me tomorrow, and we will visit this wonderful artist.”

But when the young man had departed, it cannot be denied that a remarkable expression was again visible on the fair and youthful face of his mistress.  It was a sad and anxious look, little in accordance with what should have been the feelings of a maiden on the eve of wedlock.  Yet Walter Ludlow was the chosen of her heart.

“A look!” said Elinor to herself.  “No wonder that it startled him if it expressed what I sometimes feel.  I know by my own experience how frightful a look may be.  But it was all fancy.  I thought nothing of it at the time; I have seen nothing of it since; I did but dream it;” and she busied herself about the embroidery of a ruff in which she meant that her portrait should be taken.

The painter of whom they had been speaking was not one of those native artists who at a later period than this borrowed their colors from the Indians and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts.  Perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and prearranged his destiny, he might have chosen to belong to that school without a master in the hope of being at least original, since there were no works of art to imitate nor rules to follow.  But he had been born and educated in Europe.  People said that he had studied the grandeur or beauty of conception and every touch of the master-hand in all the most famous pictures in cabinets and galleries and on the walls of churches till there was nothing more for his powerful mind to learn.  Art could add nothing to its lessons, but Nature might.  He had, therefore, visited a world whither none of his professional brethren had preceded him, to feast his eyes on visible images that were noble and picturesque, yet had never been transferred to canvas.  America was too poor to afford other temptations to an artist of eminence,