autiful
creation. "Alcestis," calmly smiling from the canvas, shed balm into his
vexed soul.

But beneath the purple chlamys poor little Olive still trembled and
grieved. Not until her hope was thus crushed, did she know how near her
heart it had been. She thought of Michael Vanbrugh's scornful rebuke,
and bitter shame possessed her. She stood--patient model!--her fingers
stiffening over the rich drapery, her eyes weariedly fixed on the one
corner of the room, in the direction of which she was obliged to turn
her head. The monotonous attitude contributed to plunge her mind into
that dull despair which produces immobility--Michael Vanbrugh had never
had so steady a model.

As Olive was placed, he could not see her face unless he moved. When he
did so, he quite startled her out of a reverie by exclaiming--

"Exquisite! Stay just as you are. Don't change your expression. That's
the very face I want for the Mother of Alcestis. A little older I must
make it--but the look of passive misery, the depressed eyelids and
mouth. Ah, beautiful--beautiful! Do, pray, let me have that expression
again, just for three minutes!" cried the eager painter.

He accomplished his end; for Olive's features, from long habit, had had
good practice in that line;--and she would willingly have fixed them
into all Le Bran's Passions, if necessary for artistic purposes.
Delighted at his success, Mr. Vanbrugh suddenly thought of his model,
not _as_ a model, but as a human being. He wondered what had produced
the look which, now faithfully transferred to the canvas, completed "a
bit" that had troubled him for weeks. He then thought of the drawings,
and of his roughness concerning them. Usually he hated amateurs and
their productions, but perhaps these might not be so bad. He would not
condescend to lift them, but fidgeting with his mahl-stick, he stirred
them about once or twice--accidentally as it seemed--until he had a
very good notion of what they were. Then, after half-an-hour's silent
painting, he thus addressed Olive.

"Miss Rothesay, what put it into your head that you wanted to be an
artist?"

Olive answered nothing. She was ashamed to speak of her girlish
aspirations, such as they had been; and she could not tell the other
motive--the secret about Mr. Gwynne. Besides, Vanbrugh would have
scorned the bare idea of her entering on the great career of Art for
money! So she was silent.

He did not seem to mind it at all, but went on talking