“Always at work!  Beulah, you give yourself no rest.  Day and night you are constantly busy.”

Apparently this remark fell on deaf ears; for, without replying, Beulah lifted her drawing, looked at it intently, turned it round once or twice, and then resumed her crayon.

“What a hideous countenance!  Who is it?” continued Clara.

“Mors.”

“She is horrible!  Where did you ever see anything like it?”

“During the height of the epidemic I fell asleep for a few seconds, and dreamed that Mors was sweeping down, with extended arms, to snatch you.  By the clock I had not slept quite two minutes, yet the countenance of Mors was indelibly stamped on my memory, and now I am transferring it to paper.  You are mistaken; it is terrible, but not hideous!” Beulah laid aside her pencil, and, leaning her elbows on the table, sat, with her face in her hands, gazing upon the drawing.  It represented the head and shoulders of a winged female; the countenance was inflexible, grim, and cadaverous.  The large, lurid eyes had an owlish stare; and the outspread pinions, black as night, made the wan face yet more livid by contrast.  The extended hands were like those of a skeleton.

“What strange fancies you have!  It makes the blood curdle in my veins to look at that awful countenance,” said Clara shudderingly.

“I cannot draw it as I saw it in my dream!  Cannot do justice to my ideal Mors!” answered Beulah, in a discontented tone, as she took up the crayon and retouched the poppies which clustered in the sable locks.

“For Heaven’s sake, do not attempt to render it any more horrible!  Put it away, and finish this lovely Greek face.  Oh, how I envy you your talent for music and drawing!  Nature gifted you rarely!”

“No! she merely gave me an intense love of beauty, which constantly impels me to embody, in melody or coloring, the glorious images which the contemplation of beauty creates in my soul.  Alas!  I am not a genius.  If I were I might hope to achieve an immortal renown.  Gladly would I pay its painful and dangerous price!” She placed the drawing of Mors in her portfolio and began to touch lightly an unfinished head of Sappho.

“Ah, Clara, how connoisseurs would carp at this portrait of the ‘Lesbian Muse’!  My guardian, for one, would sneer, superbly.”

“Why, pray?  It is perfectly beautiful!”

“Because, forsooth, it is no low-browed, swarthy Greek.  I have a penchant for high, broad, expansive foreheads, which are antagonistic to all the ancient models of beauty.  Low foreheads characterize the antique; but who can fancy ’violet-crowned, immortal Sappho,’

     “’With that gloriole
       Of ebon hair, on calmed brows,’

other than I have drawn her!” She held up the paper, and smiled triumphantly.

In truth, it was a face of rare loveliness; of oval outline, with delicate yet noble features, whose expression seemed the reflex of the divine afflatus.  The uplifted eyes beamed with the radiance of inspiration; the full, ripe lips were just parted; the curling hair clustered with child-like simplicity round the classic head; and the exquisitely formed hands clasped a lyre.