Their eyes
met, and in a single moment there was formed between them an invisible
bond which both felt and neither sought to conceal. No word was spoken.
The artist painted on in silence; but a new light had come into his
sitter's face, and a new source of inspiration into his own heart.

For a long time neither spoke. A dreamy hush seemed to creep in with the
sweet odors from the garden, and, with them, a summer restfulness and
peace. The yellow butterfly that had been hovering about them, flitting
this way and that, came closer and closer, and at last settled
fearlessly upon one of the gloved hands that lay folded in the sitter's
lap. She watched it for a moment, then looked up at the painter with a
smile.

"The insect has a true instinct," he said, gently; "it has no fear of
capture."

"No; I should only hurt it and destroy its beauty."

"Butterflies," said the artist, "are like beautiful thoughts. They hover
mistily about us, flitting away whenever we attempt to capture them; and
if at last we are successful we find only too often that their wings
have lost the delicacy of their bloom."

"Yes; I have felt that many times."

While she spoke the insect rose hastily in the air as if frightened,
and, circling about for a moment above them, darted out through the open
window.

"I have heard they are emblems of inconstancy, too," she said,
thoughtfully, as it disappeared.

A faint glow of crimson suffused for an instant the olive face before
her, but he forced a smile and did not reply.

The rest of the afternoon slipped away with but little interchange of
words between artist and sitter. When either spoke the words were few
and simple, but there was a tenderness in their voices that uttered more
than the spoken syllables.

The face on the canvas was growing rapidly. He had already worked longer
than he usually did at the first sitting, and yet he could not bear to
let her go. He had seen her for the first time less than two hours
before; he did not even know her name. The little white card which she
had given him he had glanced at without reading. He had only seen her
features, and heard only the gentle voice that had made known her
errand. And now he wondered if it were possible that only a few hours
before she had had no part in his life; a life wherein there had been
many lights and shadows, and the shadows had been ever as broad and
somber as the lights had been bold and brilliant.

II.

An h