he pearls and diamonds he had amused himself with
making larger than they were, and filled these with a winking fire,
those with a lambent luster. But Gerald had no mind when he indulged in
satire to be gross. The whole was dainty, as shimmering as a
soap-bubble, and of a fineness that rightly commended it to lovers of
beautiful surfaces.

"I don't care," burst from Aurora, as if in reply to an inaudible
criticism, "I just love it! I don't care if it is flattered. I could hug
you for it, Gerald Fane. I think it's perfectly lovely. It's going to be
a solid satisfaction. By and by, when my double chin has caught up with
me, and I'm a homely old thing, and nobody knows what I did look like in
my prime, I'll have this to show them. By that time, with my brain
weakening, I hope I shall have come to thinking it was as like me as two
peas. There's some reason for living now."

Every caller was taken to see the portrait, and heard Mrs. Hawthorne's
opinion of the talented artist. The majority of visitors candidly shared
her admiration, though not one woman among them can have failed to say
to herself that the portrait was flattered. But with a portrait of
oneself to have executed, who would not prefer the brush that makes
beautiful?

Interest spread in the painter, whose work few even of the Florentines
knew except from hearsay. No one who saw Mrs. Hawthorne's portrait was
very clearly aware--such is fame!--that it was for Fane a departure.
Until it came to Leslie. She stood a long time before the painting, then
exclaimed:

"What a joke!"

But she was inclined to take the same view as Mrs. Hawthorne, that when
he could paint like that it was a pity Gerald should not do it oftener,
to build up a reputation and fill his purse. She only would have advised
him not to go quite so far another time in the same direction.

* * * * *

As Gerald, the portrait finished, came no more to the house, fairly as
if modesty could not have endured the compliments showered upon him,
Aurora with a communication to make had to square herself before her
desk in the room of the red flowers and painstakingly pen a note.

Aurora, when taking pains, wrote the cleanest, clearest, most
characterless hand that was ever seen outside of a school copy-book, and
took pride in it. Aurora's language, when she applied herself to
composition, lost the last vestige of color and life. She wrote:

"My dear Mr. F