“Oh, blessed sunbeam, don’t force me to see it!  Let me go back and try to be better before I see my likeness.  I am afraid now.  The outside prettiness is n’t anything, unless one’s spirit is lovely too; and I—­I could not look, for I know—­I know how hateful mine would be.  I have learned about it now, and it’s like a book; if the story the book tells is not beautiful, the pictures won’t be good to see.  I have learned about it now, and I know better than I did.  May I—­oh, may I try again?”

She waited in an agony of suspense for the answer; and when it came, and the voice said gently, “It is your turn next,” she cried aloud,—­

“Not yet, oh, not yet!  Let me wait.  Let me try again.”

And there she was, with her cheeks all flushed and tear-stained, her hair in loose, damp curls about her temples, and her frock all rumpled and crushed in her mother’s arms; and her mother was saying,—­

“Bad dreams, sweetheart?  You have had a fine, long nap; but it is your turn next, and I have had to wake you.  Come, dear!  Now we must see if we cannot get a good likeness of you,—­just as you really are.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO LIONEL.

It is not to be supposed that such things happen every day.  If they were to happen every day, one would get so familiar with them that they would not seem at all extraordinary; and if there were no extraordinary things in the world, how very dull one would be, to be sure!  As it is—­ But to go back.

The beggar had stood before the area-gate for a long time, and no one had paid the slightest attention to him.  He was an old man with long gray hair, and a faded, ragged coat, whose tatters fluttered madly to and fro every time the wind blew.  He was very tall and gaunt, and his back was bent.  On his head was a big slouched hat, whose brim fell forward over his eyes and almost hid them entirely in its shadow.  He carried a basket upon one arm, and a cane with a crook for a handle hung upon the other.  He seemed very patient, for he was waiting, unmurmuringly, for some one to come in answer to the ring he had given the area-bell some fifteen minutes before.  No one came, and he appeared to be considering whether to ring again or go away, when Lionel skipped nimbly from his chair by the drawing-room window, slipped noiselessly down the basement stairs, and opened the area-door just in time to prevent the beggar from taking his departure.

“What do you want, sir?” inquired Lionel, politely, through the tall iron gate.

The beggar turned around at the sound of the child’s voice, and replied: 

“I have come to beg—­”

“Oh, yes, I know,” cried Lionel, hurriedly (he was afraid some one might come, and then he would be snatched unceremoniously away from the open door, and the beggar sent smartly about his business by one of the pert-tongued maids); “but is it for cold victuals or money?”