As Regina looked up at it she stopped, then run to the hearth, and stood with her eyes riveted to the canvas, her lips parted and quivering.

Watching her, Mr. Palma came to her side, and asked: 

“Whom can it be?”

Evidently she did not hear him.  Her whole heart and soul appeared centred in the picture; but as she gazed, her own eloquent face grew whiter, she drew her breath quickly, and tears rolled over her cheeks, as she lifted her arms toward the painting.

“Mother I my beautiful sad-eyed mother!”

Sobs shook her frame, and she pressed toward the mantelpiece till the skirt of her dress swept dangerously close to the fire.  Mr. Palma drew her back, and said quietly: 

“For an uncultivated young rustic, I must say your appreciation of fine painting is rather surprising.  Few city girls would have paid such a tearful tribute of heartfelt admiration to my pretty ’Mona Lisa.’”

Without removing her fascinated eyes she asked: 

“When did it come?”

“I have had it several days.  I presume that you know it is a copy of Da Vinci’s celebrated picture, upon which he worked four years, and which now hangs in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris?”

She merely shook her head.

“In France it is called ’La Joconde; but I prefer the softer ’Mona Lisa’ for my treasure.”

“Is it not mine?  She must have sent it to me?”

“She?  Are you dreaming?  Mona Lisa has been dead three hundred years!”

“Mr. Palma, it is my mother.  No other face ever looked like that, no other eyes except those in the Mater Dolorosa resemble these beautiful sad brown eyes, that rained their tears upon my head.  Do you think a child ever mistook another for her own mother?  Can the face I first learned to know and to love, the lovely—­oh! how lovely—­face that bent over my cradle ever—­ever be forgotten?  If I never saw her again in this world, could I fail to recognise her in heaven?  My own mother!”

“Obstinate, infatuated little ignoramus!  Read—­and be convinced.”

He opened and held before her a volume of engravings of the pictures and statues in the Louvre, and turning to the Leonardo Da Vinci’s, moved his fingers slowly beneath the title.

Her eyes fell upon “La Joconde,” then wandered back to the portrait over the fireplace; and through her tears broke a radiant smile.

“Yes, sir, I perfectly understand.  Your engraving is of Da Vinci’s painting, and of course I suppose it is very fine, though the face is not pretty; but up yonder! that is mother!  My mother who kissed and cried over me, and hugged me so close to her heart.  Oh!  Your Da Vinci never even dreamed of, much less painted, anything half so heavenly as my darling mother’s face!”

Closing the book, Mr. Palma threw it on the table, and as he glanced from the lovely countenance of the girl to that of the woman on the wall, something like a sigh heaved his broad chest.