y miniature and representing a young man
with a remarkably handsome face, in a high-collared green coat and
a buff waistcoat. I judged the picture to have a valuable quality
of resemblance and to have been painted when the model was about
twenty-five years old. There are, as all the world knows, three other
portraits of the poet in existence, but none of them is of so early a
date as this elegant production. "I have never seen the original but
I have seen other likenesses," I went on. "You expressed doubt of this
generation having heard of the gentleman, but he strikes me for all the
world as a celebrity. Now who is he? I can't put my finger on him--I
can't give him a label. Wasn't he a writer? Surely he's a poet." I was
determined that it should be she, not I, who should first pronounce
Jeffrey Aspern's name.

My resolution was taken in ignorance of Miss Bordereau's extremely
resolute character, and her lips never formed in my hearing the
syllables that meant so much for her. She neglected to answer my
question but raised her hand to take back the picture, with a gesture
which though ineffectual was in a high degree peremptory. "It's only
a person who should know for himself that would give me my price," she
said with a certain dryness.

"Oh, then, you have a price?" I did not restore the precious thing; not
from any vindictive purpose but because I instinctively clung to it. We
looked at each other hard while I retained it.

"I know the least I would take. What it occurred to me to ask you about
is the most I shall be able to get."

She made a movement, drawing herself together as if, in a spasm of
dread at having lost her treasure, she were going to attempt the immense
effort of rising to snatch it from me. I instantly placed it in her hand
again, saying as I did so, "I should like to have it myself, but with
your ideas I could never afford it."

She turned the small oval plate over in her lap, with its face down,
and I thought I saw her catch her breath a little, as if she had had
a strain or an escape. This however did not prevent her saying in a
moment, "You would buy a likeness of a person you don't know, by an
artist who has no reputation?"

"The artist may have no reputation, but that thing is wonderfully well
painted," I replied, to give myself a reason.

"It's lucky you thought of saying that, because the painter was my
father."

"That makes the picture indeed precious!" I exclaimed, laughing; and I