quaintance. The picture progressed | you like Tennyson's 'Idyls?' Is Enid slowly; but as neither of their tongues were ever still, it is only to be wondered at that Mr. l'Estrange got as much done as he did. He painted as if he liked his task, and the picture was a success as far as it went. There was something in it which Mrs. St. Vincent said she had never seen in Geraldine's face, but portrait-painters should be more or less poets; and "we know that poets are a law unto themselves." Only Mr. l'Estrange seemed never satisfied, and the sittings were more numerous than ever, though the picture did not seem nearer completion. Geraldine could only have six sittings more before her marriage; that being fixed for the first week in March, and Mrs. St. Vincent grudged the time given to them, as it was taken from the more interesting occupation of trying on gowns and bonnets. Geraldine is not shy now; as she shakes bands with Mr. l'Estrange, her color is coming and going very becomingly, but her eyes have a glad, sparkling light in them; and, as she removes her bonnet and pushes back the luxuriant hair from that blue-veined forehead, she turns to the young artist with a smile dangerous and bewitching. "My maid has taken no end of pains, and has been half an hour longer than usual; so I hope my hair will please you to-day." still the reigning favorite, or have you come to my view of Elaine ? And what do you say to me for having introduced you to your beau-idéal?” "Three questions at once is hardly fair, Mr. l'Estrange," Geraldine replied, laughing; then, growing suddenly grave, she continued, “I shall never like Elaine best, though I admire her very much. She ought not to have allowed Launcelot to see so plainly how she loved him unsought. It is not natural or lifelike, no girl would do so; at least no girl such as Elaine is described to be." Geraldine, though she spoke with a quiet conviction which was in itself infinitely charming, showed no consciousness that she was trenching on a subject not often discussed between young men and maidens; and Arthur l'Estrange, as he listened to her, and marked the pure and noble outline of the still childish face, would have cut out his tongue before he would have said the word which could have raised a painful blush on that fair cheek. Other men might have found something light and witty to say upon the occasion, or have laughed at her enthusiasm; the artist did neither. He was touched and awed by a nature such as this; he had never known one like it, and he recognized its transparent truthfulness, and respected its lovely purity. He replied, with a gravity equal to her own: He does not look very much displeased; and, having seen that she is sitting in the position she ought to "You forget the times, I think, remember but never does, he begins to Miss St. Vincent. It was an age of work. chivalry, but also of barbarism, and "Well, Miss St. Vincent, how do men and women too were allowed to be more what Nature made them than | love as it would man's. Even to be this nineteenth century can permit. suspected hurts them less than neglect Besides, Elaine would naturally feel or indifference, I imagine. Enid nothat her love flattered Launcelot, a bly forgave and forgot, if she had ever man so much her senior. Noble and remembered. Yes, certainly women gallant though he was, such love as are more forgiving than we are." hers would have done honor to an emperor; and she herself, the darling of her father's and her brother's hearts, who had in her short life been denied nothing, probably thought that to love was to be loved. Even when she finds it vain, she is gentle and womanly still, this Elaine the lovable,' when she sings her plaint: 'Sweet is true love, though given in vain, in vain ; I know not which is sweeter-no, not I: O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die."" The voice which repcated these simple lines was like no other speaking voice I have ever heard—it had a timbre which vibrated on your heart for years after it was silent forever-it was like music without the noise. "They are very lovely lines," Geraldine said, after a pause; "but still I think my heroine was the best, who lived for her love, not died for it. Enid conquered unjust suspicion, and won back the heart which should have been hers always and forever. She was noblest, surely, Mr. l'Estrange? She was sorely tried too, but never weary of the right." "That is a true woman's doctrine, and women only, I believe, have the courage to do right for right's sake. At any rate, they bear injustice and oppression much better than men do, and it does not seem to wear out their "And so they ought to be," Geraldine said, hotly; men have to be other things which we can never bebrave and noble and self-helpful, as well as helping others." "Then you think women are never brave, Miss St. Vincent?" "I know I'm not," she said, laughing; "I am the greatest coward you ever saw." "In some things you may be a coward, not in all. Painters, you know, flatter themselves that they are to a certain extent physiognomists; and though you may not have great physical courage, I am sure, from your face, you are not deficient in moral." "Perhaps not-I ought to say, I hope not-but I trust I shall never be tried. I like to lean on others, and have very little confidence in my own judgment." "It would be strange if at your age you had; you are so untried now, and have all your life before you, and I venture to prophesy that, if any part of it requires unusual fortitude, and that moral courage we were talking of just now, you will not be found wanting-nor in physical either, if it comes to the point. You might recognize in yourself a true heroine, because an unconscious one." Geraldine sighed, and her bright face was clouded for a moment as she said: "One looks so different from what | years; it had a ring of truth about it one is, and feels so unlike what one-all the prestige of her glorious ought to feel; and it all seems very youth and her happy, innocent life. mysterious. People talk to me of my There was no lurking vein of satire or candid face, and praise what they ill-nature in her merriment. It broke would rather die than be themselves; forth like the song of a bird, unconand all the time I am longing to be- trollable in its mirth and joy, but as come like them-to hide my real sweet as it was sunny-the saddest thoughts and feelings, and get a man- heart could not have turned away proner of the world, which is the only faned by such melody. one, mamma says, one ought to have in London." "God forbid!" ejaculated Mr. l'Estrange, so fervently that even imperturbable Miss Osborn looked up from her book, grave rebuke in her face; and at the measured voice in which she said, "I should not think you would paint any better, Mr. l'Estrange, for swearing at your picture," Geraldine's ringing laugh broke forth—a laugh which was the gayest and most infectious I ever heard. The artist caught the infection, and laughed too. The young voices mingling in that happiest of all choruses sounded strangely sweet and blithe. Have you ever noticed that nothing brings people more together than a joyous fit of laughter?-about something very trifling and foolish, it may be, but the sympathy is irresistible; and you will be more at your ease with a person whose risible faculties respond to your own and are easily awakened, than with a long-tried friend whose sense of the ridiculous is imperfect and undeveloped. Geraldine was at that happy age, a child still with a woman's prerogatives and privileges; her laugh was the blithest sound I have heard for How parents can listen to such laughter in their innocent children, and condemn them in later life to the living death-the death of all hope and all youth, and all happiness, which a loveless marriage means to a womanpasses my comprehension. If a woman-not a girl in her teens― does this for herself, elects to marry a man she knows she does not love, for the sake of the things of this world, and does it with her eyes open, counting to a certain extent all the cost, she is bound to make the best of it, and to be a good and true wife to the man who has chosen her; but a girl is often talked into a marriage like this by those who ought to prefer to follow her to the grave rather than to the bridal which wrecks all that is loveliest and most holy in a woman's nature. How can mothers advocate such marriages as these, knowing well how much their children are forfeiting, having themselves realized that even with love-pure and constant love-the relation between husband and wife demands great forbearance, gentleness, and humility, on the wife's side; true chivalry, nobleness, and firm affection, on the man's, to make the union a happy one; and, above all, the bond of a Christian faith, and a looking forward to that better life where change is unknown, where sorrow never enters, over which time has no power. CHAPTER VI. the picture to her; and she starts painfully at the first tone of a voice neither harsh nor discordant to the The question is certainly a pecu ear. liar one, and spoken so much on an irresistible impulse of the moment, that as such only can it be forgiven. "Miss St. Vincent, how do people feel when they are going to be mar "Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the ried? Do they ever forget it, or does chords with might, Smote the chord of self, that trembling passed in music out of sight." It is the last sitting. Miss Osborn is ill with a bad cold, and Geraldine is on her way to Mr. l'Estrange's with her mother, who has not been in the studio ten minutes before she recollects an engagement at twelve, and hurries off, promising to return for Geraldine in half an hour. For the ever first time in their brief acquaintance, the artist and his young sitter are alone; not that they have not frequently forgotten Miss Osborn's presence before this, and conversed as if the world held but them in it, and their world in that cold, uncomfortable studio has been a sweeter and a fairer one to both than either had dreamed of. They have not talked of love, or of any thing I could repeat to you, or indeed of any thing profound or particularly interesting-except perhaps to them. Both Mr. l'Estrange and his sitter are exceedingly grave this morning, and the artist worked for nearly an hour in unbroken silence. Geraldine is too pensive now to be like the bright face on the canvas, which Mr. l'Estrange is contemplating with half-shut eyes. His sitter is unconscious that his gaze wanders from it strike them with a fresh surprise when they think of it?" the Geraldine lifted her blue eyes to his darker ones, with a gaze bewilconscience-struck; dered and blood rushed in waves over her face, her throat, and dyed even her transparent neck and arms. She tried twice to speak, but no words were audible. “Forgive me, I am very stupid and inconsiderate. Believe me, I did not mean to pain you;" and the eyes had softened, and were looking into hers with all the winning fascination of which they were capable. Suddenly they lighted into a rare and fitful smile. a smile which grew tender, and then sad, and then faded away. The question was not answered, but another was. Geraldine had partially recovered her composure, and was feverishly twining her long, taper fingers in and out of each other. "I am very foolish, I think, this morning; somehow one never likes doing things for the last time, and I have done so many lately-this is my last-" She hesitated; it did not seem right or maidenly to claim his interest in what purely concerned her GERALDINE AND HER MOTHER. 21 "It is not about the sleeves, mamma, but about something which I am afraid will make you angry, that I wanted to speak to you." self. But Arthur l'Estrange had ris | about the point d'Alençon sleeves; en now, his gaze confronting hers, but Victorine and I have settled that dreamy no longer, but impassioned matter; she goes the first thing in the and eager. Words rose to his lips morning to insist upon their being which would not be stayed-words given to her, or sent in the evening. which would have been better left I am glad to see that at last, Geralunspoken, when the hearer was the dine, you are taking a little interest promised bride of another; but youth in your things, which I have toiled was hot within him, and he was gaz- like a slave to get in time.” ing upon what most he loved in life. He knew it now; this girl, with her fair, tender beauty, her innocent girlishness, her fresh enthusiasm, had wound herself round his heart, and he loved her as we love but once in life--better we had never loved at all, if that love be hopeless. She was looking at him as she had never looked on Edmund Trevelyan-love and light in her eyes-shy, but glad. They had both forgotten the existence of all others, when they were startled by a violent ring at the bell, announcing Mrs. St. Vincent's return. "Go to bed, child, now, and we will talk in the morning." "But, mamma, I must speak now indeed I must; there are so few days before-and I can't-that's to say I don't want to be married so soon. I am so young, and I know so little of Colonel Trevelyan." The voice, which had begun very faltering, spoke these last sentences with a decision and firmness quite unlike its usual tones. "Don't want to be married! Are you ill or mad, Geraldine, or both?” screamed Mrs. Vincent, starting up. "Light the candles at once, and let me look at you. Ah! well, you have got a headache, I see. I feared you would, when I had to leave you so long in the studio, which smells of paint and turpentine to such a degree that I wonder I did not faint." "Mamma, I have no headache, and I'm not ill; and, for once, you must listen to me. I cannot marry Colonel Trevelyan!" "What, in the name of wonder, I should like to know, Geraldine, makes you dare to speak to me in such a |