eft entirely to herself.

As day after day and week after week rolled by, a softened sorrow, akin
only to grief--

"As the mist resembles the rain"--

took the place of the poignant woe which had overwhelmed her at first,
and time laid a gentle hand upon her afflictions. Gradually, too, she
became attached to her art, and made such rapid strides towards
proficiency that Pollexfen ceased, finally, to give any instruction, or
offer any hints as to the manner in which she ought to paint. Thus her
own taste became her only guide; and before six months had elapsed after
the death of her father, the pictures of Pollexfen became celebrated
throughout the city and state, for the correctness of their coloring and
the extraordinary delicacy of their finish. His gallery was daily
thronged with the wealth, beauty and fashion of the great metropolis,
and the hue of his business assumed the coloring of success.

But his soul was the slave of a single thought. Turmoil brooded there,
like darkness over chaos ere the light pierced the deep profound.

During the six months which we have just said had elapsed since the
domiciliation of Mlle. Marmont beneath his roof, he had had many long
and perfectly frank conversations with her, upon the subject which most
deeply interested him. She had completely fathomed his secret, and by
degrees had learned to sympathize with him, in his search into the
hidden mysteries of photographic science. She even became the frequent
companion of his chemical experiments, and night after night attended
him in his laboratory, when the lazy world around them was buried in the
profoundest repose.

Still, there was one subject which, hitherto, he had not broached, and
that was the one in which she felt all a woman's curiosity--_the offer
to purchase an eye_. She had long since ascertained the story of the
one-eyed pets in the parlor, and had not only ceased to wonder, but was
mentally conscious of having forgiven Pollexfen, in her own enthusiasm
for art.

Finally, a whole year elapsed since the death of her father, and no
extraordinary change took place in the relations of the master and his
pupil. True, each day their intercourse became more unrestrained, and
their art-association more intimate. But this intimacy was not the tie
of personal friendship or individual esteem. It began in the laboratory,
and there it ended. Pollexfen had no soul except for his art; no love
outside of his profession. Money