the marriage, which was not to take | sary places with her mother. Against this her father was at first inclined to rebel. He wanted to take his darling, of whom he was not a little proud, to the plays and pantomimes, and insisted that, as she was going to be married, she was quite old enough to dine with them when he had a few friends to dinner; but this the colonel was obstinate about-so obstinate, that Mrs. St. Vincent persuaded her facile husband that Colonel Trevelyan was too good a connection to offend. So Geraldine was condemned to the school place till after Geraldine was seventeen, her father said; and her mother found plenty to do in the delightful business of shopping for a bride who was to be rich and a great lady. Her own poverty and her numerous children had prevented her from ever realizing the passion which is supposed to exist in the female mind for dress and spending money; but Colonel Trevelyan-who had unexceptional taste in the mysteries of the toilet, and did not want to introduce a too rustic bride to his fashionable relations and acquaint-room tea, when any one was invited to ances-begged his sister, Lady St. Clair, to call and give Mrs. St. Vincent the requisite directions for milliners and mantua-makers; and delicately hinted to Geraldine's mother that he should like to give his intended a check for a thousand pounds with which to buy odds and ends. He had already loaded her with lace and India shawls, besides other costly presents; and the poor child was fairly bewildered by the new importance attached to her, and by all that becoming a wife seemed to entail upon her. dine in Eaton Place; and it is my firm belief she much preferred it to the solemn dinner with her parents; she was still such a child in years, and hers was one of those natures which, slow in reaching maturity, do so abundantly enjoy and make the most of childhood. She would have liked to see a play or a pantomime as much as Minnie; but she was docile by nature, and easily persuaded that her future husband knew best; besides, to a thoroughly country girl there were novelty and excitement enough in being in London, in shopping and driving about, in receiving beautiful presents, and in reading and answering Colonel Trevelyan's letters. Not that he shone in correspondence; she was disappointed in his letters; but hardly would the loyal child admit it even to herself. Although she seemed to have rather rashly and suddenly entered into her en Meantime Colonel Trevelyan could not continue in town after the first few weeks, having arrangements to make for selling out, as he no longer intended to remain in the army; besides which a great many alterations were being carried out under his own eye at Trevelyan, for the comfort and convenience of his future wife. He made but one stipulation in his ab-gagement, she viewed marriage as a sence, and that was, that Geraldine very solemn thing, her tendencies being should be seen by no one, and go no- decidedly religious. She had lived in where except to shops and other neces- a frivolous atmosphere so far as her MR. L'ESTRANGE'S STUDIO. 13 mother was concerned, and in a care- | Geraldine's picture by Colonel Trevelyan's express desire. less one as regarded her father; but she had been Mr. Austen's pet pupil, and, like most high-spirited people, was constitutionally reverent and full of veneration for sacred things; and she was grieved and disconcerted that Colonel Trevelyan neither in his letters nor conversation ever alluded to the coming tie between them in other than a worldly spirit-that of so arranging every thing as would best suit the position she was to fill, and consulting her slightly on unimportant matters connected with the house, its alterations and improvements; but he never talked or wrote of their marriage as a serious step, nor made any allusion to it except in the most commonplace manner. Once when Geraldine's shyness was overcome by her desire to know more of her future husband's feelings upon their engagement, she ventured to put in one of her letters that she trusted God would teach her to be a good wife, and that he, Colonel Trevelyan, would have patience with her youth and inexperience; and she had waited longingly and tremblingly for the answer, which, when it came, made not the slightest allusion to what she had written. The disappointment was most keenly felt, and weighed upon even her buoyant spirits more than she would have cared to own. It seemed fortunate that on such a day she should have more than usual to occupy both her time and attention, and this was the day fixed upon by Mrs. St. Vincent to call on the artist who was to paint Mr. l'Estrange was at home, for he expected his sitter. He was prepared for a good deal of beauty-for he knew the bridegroom-elect pretty intimately, as intimately as men not in his immediate set did, and his hypercritical taste about women was notorious-but Mr. l'Estrange was wholly unprepared for the extreme youth and girlishness of the lady, and at the first introduction thought Mrs. St. Vincent was the future Mrs. Trevelyan. Geraldine loved pictures with her whole heart, and her shyness vanished before those which filled Mr. l'Estrange's studio. She did not say "How beautiful! What exquisite coloring!" etc., etc., as an introduced young lady would have thought it her duty to do; but she was thoroughly in her element, and showed her intense though quiet enjoyment of the first good modern pictures which had come in her way. After the first formalities were over, she sat down opposite the picture which had riveted her on coming into the room, and gave Mr. l'Estrange a good opportunity of studying the childish and intent face which he was to transfer to canvas. He did not think she would be difficult to paint; except, perhaps, to do justice to the coloring, which was, he owned, beautiful and uncommon. Her straight profile-Grecian in its purest type, it would be, he said to himself, when four or five more summers should have passed over her head -was a good subject for an artist's pencil; but when he woke her from her brown study, his rich, melodious voice, unlike any she had ever heard, | many sittings, Mr. l'Estrange; she is very like what I was at her age, and Mr. said he had never made so good a likeness from so few sittings.-You remember the picture, Geraldine, in the small library at Oldcourt?" Then turning again to Mr. l'Estrange: "We have so little time at present, that if Colonel Trevelyan had not so much breaking in upon the spell his picture had thrown around her, and she turned to answer him, her sunny lips parted, her whole face lighted up by her youth's shy enthusiasm, his task appeared to him a very different one. He almost wished he had not undertaken it: what pencil, what color, could do justice to the radiant sweet-wished it, I think the portrait might ness, the soft, girlish grace, the fasci- just as well have been taken later." nation, which had changed her whole face in an instant, and made her so like his ideal of the beguiling maiden in Excelsior, that he longed there and then to begin her picture in that character? He need not have so troubled himself. Colonel Trevelyan had seen none of this beauty, he never would how, then, could he detect its absence in the picture? Even in his younger and better days he was not a man to have done justice to a nature like this; and now he had lost the power to appreciate it. "Be sure your sin will find you out." In all the inspired writings there are no truer words than these. We lose the sense of a beauty in God's world which we have scoffed at and scorned. CHAPTER IV. "Half light, half shade She stood, a sight to make an old man young." GERALDINE's first sitting was in the middle of January. She went accompanied by the old English governess who had preceded Mdlle. Leloup in the education of the St. Vincents; for her mother had no artistic turn of mind, and very much preferred the shopping, which seemed rather to fatigue and bewilder the daughter. The girl was at first so shy, that she answered in monosyllables all the remarks Mr. l'Estrange addressed to her. He soon found it necessary for the success of his portrait to make her talk. Her face, so sunny when she was ani Mrs. St. Vincent's voice broke the embarrassing silence; for Geraldine was blushing painfully under the in-mated, had a very pensive character tent gaze of the artist; and Mr. l'Estrange was so struck with the charm which he felt it was vain to attempt to render, that his dazzled eyes were endeavoring to make a mental sketch of it. "My daughter's is not a difficult face," Mrs. St. Vincent was saying; "so I hope you won't require a great when in repose, almost melancholy for one so young; but as he conversed upon subjects she had never heard put into words before-subjects which deeply interested her intelligent mind and romantic imagination—she had so far conquered her timidity (for it could hardly be called reserve), that by the time the sitting was over she felt as if she had known Mr. l'Estrange all | pearance, I must try to describe him her life; and, unlike the solemn cour- as he sat contemplating the sketch he tesy which was all Mrs. St. Vincent had just made. Mr. l'Estrange had vouchsafed on her departure, Geral- | none of the superb beauty that characdine extended a hand which was cor- terized Colonel Trevelyan; his limbs dially shaken by the young artist. were cast in a much smaller mould; Mademoiselle's sharp eyes would have his face was sad and dreamy in its reproved this familiarity; but Geral- expression, and looked as if it had dine's old governess, rather bored by known both struggle and suffering. the sitting altogether, thought of noth- It betokened also some delicacy, and ing but the satisfaction of getting an over-sensitive refinement, which peraway; and after she had bestowed a haps heightened the interest in a face formal and old-maidish farewell on Mr. not in the least good-looking. It was, l'Estrange, she congratulated Geral- however, redeemed from any charge dine on the first sitting being over, of effeminacy by the intellectual vigor and never remarked that the girl's it indicated; his dreamy eyes and usually animated and childish chatter gentle, courteous manner deceived the had entirely ceased, and that the drive | careless observer at first, but the stern home was passed in an ominous rev- lines which even at twenty-five were erie, which would have awakened in a visible round that mobile mouth, and more suspicious nature doubts as to the grand development of chin and the wisdom of these sittings. forehead, would have irresistibly interested and attracted a physiognomist. Mr. l'Estrange's reputation as a painter was European now. Even Colonel Trevelyan's haughtiness bowed before the poor man who was as well born as himself, and he had sued as a great favor for this portrait of his bride. Mr. l'Estrange painted for fame and not for money, and had declined, with very few exceptions, to paint pictures which might have crowded his studio with sitters, but would not have given him the practice or the liberty in the line of art to which he aspired. As for the young artist, he retouched the sketch he had made of his youthful sitter several times, but apparently with little success; for he at last sat down, and instead of transferring to his canvas the outline he had begun on paper, as was his custom, he sat lost in reflections so profound, and apparently so uncomfortable, that presently with a sigh, which appeared to afford him no relief, he seized his hat and coat, and abandoning all intention of painting that day, sallied forth for a long walk, by which means he hoped, perhaps, to shake off the burden that oppressed him. Whatever it was, I can have no business to meddle with matters so purely private; but as I should like my readers to become acquainted with his ap- I morning he uncovered his favorite "Not the first pretty girl who has entered these rooms and done duty as a model, by a long way," said the young artist to himself, as the next picture, and one which the day before | could not think that face was a gift Geraldine's sitting had wholly en- for a girl of lowly origin, exposed to grossed him. He contemplated it for all life's coarse temptations. The phila long time, not in the same manner in anthropist could not in a crowd have which he had stared at the sketch of passed that face without a murmured our heroine, but with a critical and "God bless you!"-it could not but practised eye, which seemed to be draw admiration from the coldest, envy searching for faults that others would from the vainest, compassion from the have in vain tried to discover. A kind and true; for the possessor had her wonderfully beautiful face it was; bread to earn, and had been induced to glorious dark eyes, masses of hair sit as a model when a very little child. black in the shade, flashing into a golden brown where it caught the light, the complexion southern in its coloring and brilliancy, delicate from the great youth it bespoke, and radiant with perfect health and a serene beauty. You wished those parted lips would open and pour forth some of the impassioned utterances you felt should flow from them; you would have liked to kindle in those voluptuous eyes the fire that lurked in their wondrous depths; you felt chilled to the heart when you thought of the shadow which life might bring to that open brow; and you knew that a life for very good or very ill must be the lot of the possessor of that face. Black with storms the path must be, or bright with sunshine. No medium course was possible for the passionate and essentially earthly nature of that excelling beauty-ardent, impulsive, unchastened, it shone forth from every lineament. A fair heritage for the daughter of a noble house, surrounded by the protection of a wealthy home and kindred love-a crowning grace to the wedded wife of a good husband, and the happy mother of beloved children; but I She was an orphan, with no home but that of an aunt who had a large family of her own to support, and who could do but little for her only sister's child, Miriam Lisle. You turned with relief from this dazzling portrait to the sketchy outline of Geraldine's features; her beauty had paled by comparison, but it was a loveliness which rested and refreshed you. Its pure angelic type seemed cold and faint, but on it there was no foreboding shadow of sin: suffering there might be-and I shrunk as from a martyr's crown when I thought of it—but disgrace and shame never. CHAPTER V. "O that Raphael's pencil had been mine! Then were that smile immortally divino." MEANTIME the sittings went on, and with much satisfaction to both the painter and his model. The old governess, Miss Osborn, frequently dozed over her book-she was bored by the whole proceeding; and Geraldine was more thoroughly at her ease with Mr. l'Estrange than could have been imagined possible after a six weeks' ac |