es I painted before I left London. Do you like them? You see I hang
upon your verdict. You at present represent the public to me."

There were tears standing in the girl's eyes.

"They are beautiful," she said, softly, "very beautiful. I am not a
judge of painting, though I have been a good deal in the galleries of
Dresden, and I was at Munich too; and I know enough to see they are
painted by a real artist. I like the bright one best, the other almost
frightens me, it is so sad and hopeless, I think--" and she hesitated,
"that girl in the veranda is something like me, though I am sure I never
look a bit like that, and I am nothing--nothing like so pretty."

"You never look like that, Miss Brander, because you have never felt as
that girl is supposed to be feeling; some day when the time comes that
you feel as she does you will look so. That is a woman, a woman who
loves. At present that side of your nature has not woke up. The
intellectual side of you, if I may so speak, has been forced, and your
soul is still asleep. Some day you will admit that the portrait, for I
own it to be a portrait, is a life-like one. Now--" he broke off
abruptly, "we had better be going or you will be late at your post."

She said no more until they were in the street.

"I have been very wrong," she said suddenly, after walking for some time
in silence. "You must have worked hard indeed. I own I never thought
that you would. I used to consider your sketches very pretty, but I
never thought that you would come to be a great artist."

"I have not come to that yet," he said, "but I do hope that I may come
to be a fair one some day--that is if the Germans don't forcibly
interfere--but I have worked very hard, and I may tell you that Goude,
who is one of the best judges in Paris, thinks well of me. I will ask
you to take care of this," he said, and he took out a blank envelope.
"This is my will. A man is a fool who goes into a battle without making
provision for what may happen. When I return you can hand it to me
again. If I should not come back please inclose it to your father. He
will see that its provisions are carried out. I may say that I have left
you the two pictures. You have a right to them, for if it had not been
for you I don't suppose they would ever have been painted. I only wish
that they had been quite finished."

Mary took the paper without a word, nor did she speak again until they
arrived at the ambulance, then she turned a