s_ lovely," he murmured. "She is well named the Rose of the
World, indeed!"

"And may I not paint one like it for you?"

"_Cui bono_? No."

He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was
accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from
being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was
impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it
up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me,
inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that seemed
to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress; for it
traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, as if to
speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw
him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in
his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good-afternoon," he vanished.

"Well!" I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, "that caps the
globe, however!"

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few
dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I
pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and
being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon
forgot it.

CHAPTER XXXIII

When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm
continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding
falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I
had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from
blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on
the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle,
took down "Marmion," and beginning--

"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The massive towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone"--

I soon forgot storm in music.

I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St.
John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen
hurricane--the howling darkness--and stood before me: the cloak that
covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in
consternation, so little had I expected