THE PORTRAIT.

“BLESS the happy art!” ejaculated Mrs. Morton, wiping the moisture from her eyes.  “Could anything be more perfect than that likeness of his sweet, innocent face?  Dear little Willie!  I fear I love him too much.”

“It is indeed perfect,” said Mr. Morton, after viewing the picture in many lights.  “My favourite painter has surpassed himself.  What could be more like life, than that gentle, half-pensive face looking so quiet and thoughtful, and yet so full of childhood’s most innocent, happy expression?”

Mr. Morton, here introduced to the reader, was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, and a liberal patron of the arts.  He had, already, obtained several pictures from Sully, who was, with him, as an artist, a great favourite.  The last order had just been sent home.  It was a portrait of his youngest, and favourite child—­a sweet little boy, upon whose head three summers had not yet smiled.

“I would not take the world for it!” said Mrs. Morton after looking at it long and steadily for the hundredth time.  “Dear little fellow!  A year from now, and how changed he will be.  And every year he will be changing and changing; but this cannot alter, and even from the period of manhood, we may look back and see our Willie’s face when but a child.”

“Every one who is able,” remarked Mr. Morton, “should have the portraits of his children taken.  What better legacy could a father leave to his child, than the image of his own innocent face!  Surely, it were enough to drive away thoughts of evil, and call up old and innocent affections, for any man, even the man of crime, to look for but a moment upon the image of what he was in childhood.”

“And yet there are some,” added Mrs. Morton, “who call portraits, and indeed, all paintings, mere luxuries—­meaning, thereby, something that is utterly useless.”

“Yes, there are such, but even they, it seems to me, might perceive their use in preserving the innocent features of their children.  The good impressions made in infancy and childhood, are rarely if ever lost; they come back upon every one at times, and are, frequently, all-powerful in the influence they exert against evil.  How like a spell to call back those innocent thoughts and affections, would be the image of a man’s face in childhood!  No one, it seems to me, could resist its influence.”

One, two, and three years passed away, and every one wrought some change upon “little Willie,” but each change seemed to the fond parents an improvement,—­yet, did they not look back to earlier years, as they glanced at his picture, with less of tender emotion, and heart-stirring delight.  But now a sad change, the saddest of all changes that occur, took place.  Disease fastened upon the child, and ere the parents, and fond sisters of a younger and only brother, were fully sensible of danger, the spirit of the child had fled.  We will not linger to pain the reader with any minute description of the deep and abiding grief that fell, like a shadow from an evil wing overspreading them, upon the household of Mr. Morton, but pass on to scenes more exciting, if not less moving to the heart.