es."

"This Rafaella, then, was the Count's daughter?"

"His only child, a girl lovely and gracious beyond rivalry."

"Oh, of course, beyond rivalry. Are not all only daughters lovely and
perfect when once they are dead?" she replied with a bitter smile. "They
have their legend, their cult, and usually a flattering portrait. I
am surprised that Rafaella's is not here. I imagine her portrait as
representing a tall girl, with long, well-arched eyebrows, and brown
eyes--"

"Greenish-brown."

"Green, if you prefer it; a small nose, cherry lips, and a mass of light
brown hair."

"Golden brown would be more correct."

"Have you seen it, then? Is there one?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle, and it lacks no perfection that you could imagine,
not even that smile of happy youth which was a falsehood ere the paint
had yet dried on the canvas. Here, before this relic, which recalls it
to my thoughts, I must confess that I am touched."

She looked at me in astonishment.

"Where is the portrait? Not here?"

"No, it is at Paris, in my friend Lampron's studio."

"O--oh!" She blushed slightly.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, it is at once a masterpiece and a sad reminder. The
story is very simple, and I am sure my friend would not mind my telling
it to you--to you if to no other--before these relics of the past.

"When Lampron was a young man travelling in Italy he fell in love with
this young girl, whose portrait he was painting. He loved her, perhaps
without confessing it to himself, certainly without avowing it to her.
Such is the way of timid and humble men of heart, men whose love is
nearly always misconstrued when it ceases to be unnoticed. My friend
risked the happiness of his life, fearlessly, without calculation--and
lost it. A day came when Rafaella Dannegianti was carried off by her
parents, who shuddered at the thought of her stooping to a painter, even
though he were a genius."

"So she died?"

"A year later. He never got over it. Even while I speak to you, he in
his loneliness is pondering and weeping over these very lines which you
have just read without a suspicion of the depth of their bitterness."

"He has known bereavement," said she; "I pity him with all my heart."

Her eyes filled with tears. She repeated the words, whose meaning was
now clear to her, "A to Rafaella." Then she knelt down softly before the
mournful inscription. I saw her bow her head. Jeanne was praying.

It was touching to see the young girl, whom