s, and of
reproach to herself for never having been able to conquer her aversion to
his latter image by recollection of what Nature had originally made him.
The sad spectacle that had gone from earth had never been her Edmond at
all to her. O that she could have met him as he was at first! Thus
Barbara thought. It was only a few days later that a waggon with two
horses, containing an immense packing-case, was seen at breakfast-time
both by Barbara and her husband to drive round to the back of the house,
and by-and-by they were informed that a case labelled 'Sculpture' had
arrived for her ladyship.

'What can that be?' said Lord Uplandtowers.

'It is the statue of poor Edmond, which belongs to me, but has never been
sent till now,' she answered.

'Where are you going to put it?' asked he.

'I have not decided,' said the Countess. 'Anywhere, so that it will not
annoy you.'

'Oh, it won't annoy me,' says he.

When it had been unpacked in a back room of the house, they went to
examine it. The statue was a full-length figure, in the purest Carrara
marble, representing Edmond Willowes in all his original beauty, as he
had stood at parting from her when about to set out on his travels; a
specimen of manhood almost perfect in every line and contour. The work
had been carried out with absolute fidelity.

'Phoebus-Apollo, sure,' said the Earl of Uplandtowers, who had never seen
Willowes, real or represented, till now.

Barbara did not hear him. She was standing in a sort of trance before
the first husband, as if she had no consciousness of the other husband at
her side. The mutilated features of Willowes had disappeared from her
mind's eye; this perfect being was really the man she had loved, and not
that later pitiable figure; in whom love and truth should have seen this
image always, but had not done so.

It was not till Lord Uplandtowers said roughly, 'Are you going to stay
here all the morning worshipping him?' that she roused herself.

Her husband had not till now the least suspicion that Edmond Willowes
originally looked thus, and he thought how deep would have been his
jealousy years ago if Willowes had been known to him. Returning to the
Hall in the afternoon he found his wife in the gallery, whither the
statue had been brought.

She was lost in reverie before it, just as in the morning.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

She started and turned. 'I am looking at my husb--- my statue, to see if
it