her chiefest joy.

"It almost seems," said she to her mother, laughing, "as if that
hard-hearted Mr. Harold Gwynne had held the threads of my destiny, and
helped to make me an artist."

"Don't let us talk about Mr. Gwynne; it is a disagreeable subject, my
child," was Mrs. Rothesay's answer.

Olive did not talk about him, but she thought the more. And--though had
he known it, the pelf-despising Mr. Vanbrugh would never have forgiven
such a desecration of Art--it was not her lightest spur in the
attainment of excellence, to feel that as soon as her pictures were good
enough to sell, she might earn money enough to discharge the claim of
this harsh creditor, whose very name sent a pang to her heart.

Day by day, as her mind strengthened and her genius developed, Olive's
existence seemed to brighten. Her domestic life was full of many dear
ties, the chief of which was that devotion, less a sentiment than a
passion, which she felt for her mother. Her intellectual fife grew more
intense; while she felt the stay and solace of having a fixed pursuit
to occupy her whole future. Also, it was good for her to live with
the enthusiastic painter and his meek contented little sister; for she
learnt thereby, that life might pass not merely in endurance, but in
peace, without either of those blessings which in her early romance
she deemed the chief of all--beauty and love. There was a greatness and
happiness beyond them both.

The lesson was impressed more deeply by a little incident that chanced
about this time.

Miss Vanbrugh sometimes took Olive with her on those little errands of
charity which were not unfrequent with the gentle Meliora.

"I wish you would come with me to-day," she said once, "because, to tell
the truth, I hardly like to go alone."

"Indeed!" said Olive, smiling, for the little old maid was as brave as a
lion among these gloomiest of all gloomy lanes, familiar to her even in
dark nights, and this was a sunny spring morning.

"I am not going to see an ordinary poor person, but that Quadroon
woman--Mrs. Manners, who is one of my brother's models sometimes--you
know her?"

"Scarcely; but I have seen her pass through the hall. Oh, she was a
grand, beautiful woman, like an Eastern queen. You remember it was she
from whom Mr. Vanbrugh painted the 'Cleopatra.' What an eye she had, and
what a glorious mouth!" cried Olive, waxing enthusiastic.

"Poor thing! Her beauty is sadly wasting now," said Meliora. "She
se