kirt and up the front with a
rich border of blue morning-glories, and a blue cord and tassel girded
it at her waist, while the broad braids of hair at the back of her
head were looped and fastened with a ribbon of the same color. Her
sleeves were gathered up to keep them clear of the paint on the
palette, and the dimples were no longer visible in her arms. The ivory
flesh was shrinking closer to the small bones, and the diaphanous
hands were so thin that the sapphire asp glided almost off the slender
finger around which it was coiled.

"Mrs. Gerome, you have lost twenty pounds of flesh within the last two
months, and your extreme pallor alarms me."

"All things look pallid in these rooms, for the light is bluish,
reflected from carpet, furniture, and curtains."

"I have noticed that you invariably wear blue, to the exclusion of all
other colors."

"Yes. Throughout the Levant it is considered a mortuary color; and,
moreover, I like its symbolism. The _Mater dolorosa_ often wears blue
vestments; also the priests during Lent; and even the images of Christ
are veiled in blue, as holy week approaches. Azure, in its absolute
significance, represents truth, and is the symbol of the soul after
death; so, as I walk the earth,--a fleshy 'death in life,'--I clothe
myself symbolically. In pagan cosmogonies the Creator is always
colored blue. Jupiter Ammon, Vischnou, Cneph, Krischna,--all are
azure. And because it is a solemn, consecrated color, mystic and
mournful, I wear it."

"My dear madam, this is a morbid whimsicality that trenches closely
upon monomania, and would be more tolerable in a lackadaisical
school-girl, than in a mature, intelligent, and gifted woman. Some of
your fantasies would be positively respectable in a Bedlamite, and you
seem an anomalous compound of eccentricities peculiar to extreme youth
and to advanced age."

"I believe, sir, that you are entirely correct in your analysis. I
stand before you, young in years, but forsaken by that 'blue-eyed
Hope' who frolics hand in hand with youth; and yet utterly devoid of
that philosophy and wisdom which justly belong to the old age of my
heart."

Her tone was indescribably weary, and, as she laid aside her brush and
folded her hands together on the cross-beam of the easel, the
transient light died out of her countenance, and the worn, tired look,
came back and settled on every feature.

... "The soft, sad eyes,
Set like twilight planets i