loor.

And after all the looking, she shook her head intelligently and fell
quietly to work, as if the mystery were plain enough, saying to herself,

"Why didn't I trust a girl's instinct who loves as Amy does? Of course
she is right. Dear! dear! Of course he loves Hope Wayne."

CHAPTER LV.

ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE.

Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a
hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of
boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called
the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting
upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions,
especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the
composition.

"You know," he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the
study as if drawing in the air, "you know it ought somehow to seem
silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and
midnight. You see?"

Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes
of the spectator.

"Oh yes, I see," said every one of his companions--especially Lawrence
Newt, who did see, indeed, but saw only a head of Hope Wayne in a mist.
The Endymion, the mountain, the Greece, the antiquity, were all vigorous
assumptions of the artist. The study for his great picture was simply an
unfinished portrait of Hope Wayne.

Aunt Winnifred, who sometimes came into her nephew's studio, saw the
study one day, and exclaimed, sorrowfully,

"Oh, Arthur! Arthur!"

The young man, who was busily mixing colors upon his pallet, and humming,
as he smoked, "'Tis my delight of a shiny night," turned in dismay,
thinking his aunt was suddenly ill.

"My dear aunt!" and he laid down his pallet and ran toward her.

She was sitting in an armchair holding the study. Arthur stopped.

"My dear Arthur, now I understand all."

Arthur Merlin was confused. He, perhaps, suspected that his picture of
Diana resembled a certain young lady. But how should Aunt Winnifred know
it, who, as he supposed, had never seen her? Besides, he felt it was a
disagreeable thing, when he was and had been in love with a young lady
for a long time, to have his aunt say that she understood all about it.
How could she understand all about it? What right has any body to say
that she understands all about it? He asked himself the petulant question
because he was very sure that he himself