ction, not remarking even my
offer to take it from him, and led the way. He was on the verge of
seventy, and looked his age; but it was a vigorous age, with no symptom
of giving way. The circle of light from the lamp lit up his white hair
and keen blue eyes and clear complexion; his forehead was like old ivory,
his cheek warmly colored; an old man, yet a man in full strength. He was
taller than I was, and still almost as strong. As he stood for a moment
with the lamp in his hand, he looked like a tower in his great height and
bulk. I reflected as I looked at him that I knew him intimately, more
intimately than any other creature in the world,--I was familiar with
every detail of his outward life; could it be that in reality I did not
know him at all?

* * * * *

The drawing-room was already lighted with a flickering array of candles
upon the mantelpiece and along the walls, producing the pretty, starry
effect which candles give without very much light. As I had not the
smallest idea what I was about to see, for Morphew's "speaking likeness"
was very hurriedly said, and only half comprehensible in the bewilderment
of my faculties, my first glance was at this very unusual illumination,
for which I could assign no reason. The next showed me a large
full-length portrait, still in the box in which apparently it had
travelled, placed upright, supported against a table in the centre of the
room. My father walked straight up to it, motioned to me to place a
smaller table close to the picture on the left side, and put his lamp
upon that. Then he waved his hand towards it, and stood aside that I
might see.

It was a full-length portrait of a very young woman--I might say a girl
scarcely twenty--in a white dress, made in a very simple old fashion,
though I was too little accustomed to female costume to be able to fix
the date. It might have been a hundred years old, or twenty, for aught I
knew. The face had an expression of youth, candor, and simplicity more
than any face I had ever seen,--or so, at least in my surprise, I
thought. The eyes were a little wistful, with something which was almost
anxiety which at least was not content--in them; a faint, almost
imperceptible, curve in the lids. The complexion was of a dazzling
fairness, the hair light, but the eyes dark, which gave individuality to
the face. It would have been as lovely had the eyes been blue,--probably
more so,--but their darkness g