likeness of the original more quickly than any one else.  She may have said more, but I heard nothing; I only saw.  For when the veil no longer hid that face from my gaze, I felt as though the gods had revealed a mystery to me which till now only the immortals had been permitted to know.  Never was my soul so steeped in devotion, never had my heart beat in such solemn uplifting as at that moment.  What I was gazing at and had to represent was a thing neither human nor divine; it was beauty itself—­that beauty of which I have often dreamed in blissful rapture.

“And yet—­do not misapprehend me—­I never thought of bewailing the maiden, or grieving over her early death.  She was but sleeping—­I could fancy:  I watched one I loved in her slumbers.  My heart beat high!  Ay, child, and the work I did was pure joy, such joy as only the gods on Olympus know at their golden board.  Every feature, every line was of such perfection as only the artist’s soul can conceive of, nay, even dream of.  The ecstasy remained, but my unrest gave way to an indescribable and wordless bliss.  I drew with the red chalk, and mixed the colors with the grinder, and all the while I could not feel the painful sense of painting a corpse.  If she were slumbering, she had fallen asleep with bright images in her memory.  I even fancied again and again that her lips moved her exquisitely chiseled mouth, and that a faint breath played with her abundant, waving, shining brown hair, as it does with yours.

“The Muse sped my hand and the portrait—­Bion and the rest will praise it, I think, though it is no more like the unapproachable original than that lamp is like the evening star yonder.”

“And shall we be allowed to see it?” asked Melissa, who had been listening breathlessly to her brother’s narrative.

The words seemed to have snatched the artist from a dream.  He had to pause and consider where he was and to whom he was speaking.  He hastily pushed the curling hair off his damp brow, and said: 

“I do not understand.  What is it you ask?”

“I only asked whether we should be allowed to see the portrait,” she answered timidly.  “I was wrong to interrupt you.  But how hot your head is!  Drink again before you go on.  Had you really finished by sundown?”

Alexander shook his head, drank, and then went on more calmly:  “No, no!  It is a pity you spoke.  In fancy I was painting her still.  There is the moon rising already.  I must make haste.  I have told you all this for Philip’s sake, not for my own.”

“I will not interrupt you again, I assure you,” said Melissa.  “Well, well,” said her brother.  “There is not much that is pleasant left to tell.  Where was I?”

“Painting, so long as it was light—­”