She did not hear him nor desist from her fixed gaze till he seized her hand, and thus attracted her notice; then with a sudden tremor she looked from the picture to the face of the original.

“Do you see no change in your portrait?” asked she.

“In mine?  None,” replied Walter, examining it.  “But let me see.  Yes; there is a slight change—­an improvement, I think, in the picture, though none in the likeness.  It has a livelier expression than yesterday, as if some bright thought were flashing from the eyes and about to be uttered from the lips.  Now that I have caught the look, it becomes very decided.”

While he was intent on these observations Elinor turned to the painter.  She regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that he repaid her with sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore she could but vaguely guess.

“That look!” whispered she, and shuddered.  “How came it there?”

“Madam,” said the painter, sadly, taking her hand and leading her apart, “in both these pictures I have painted what I saw.  The artist—­the true artist—­must look beneath the exterior.  It is his gift—­his proudest, but often a melancholy one—­to see the inmost soul, and by a power indefinable even to himself to make it glow or darken upon the canvas in glances that express the thought and sentiment of years.  Would that I might convince myself of error in the present instance!”

They had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk, hands almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church-towers, thatched cottages, old thunder-stricken trees, Oriental and antique costume, and all such picturesque vagaries of an artist’s idle moments.  Turning them over with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketch of two figures was disclosed.

“If I have failed,” continued he—­“if your heart does not see itself reflected in your own portrait, if you have no secret cause to trust my delineation of the other—­it is not yet too late to alter them.  I might change the action of these figures too.  But would it influence the event?” He directed her notice to the sketch.

A thrill ran through Elinor’s frame; a shriek was upon her lips, but she stifled it with the self-command that becomes habitual to all who hide thoughts of fear and anguish within their bosoms.  Turning from the table, she perceived that Walter had advanced near enough to have seen the sketch, though she could not determine whether it had caught his eye.

“We will not have the pictures altered,” said she, hastily.  “If mine is sad, I shall but look the gayer for the contrast.”

“Be it so,” answered the painter, bowing.  “May your griefs be such fanciful ones that only your pictures may mourn for them!  For your joys, may they be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovely face till it quite belie my art!”