ow, although it's not like her, this reminds me of
Nellie?"

"I knew you'd say that," remarked Connie, swinging round on the music
stool so as to reach the keys again and striking a note or two softly.
"It has got Nellie's presentment, whatever you call it. I noticed it the
first time I saw Nellie. That was how we happened to speak first. Harry
noticed it, too, without my having said a word to him. They might be
sisters, only Nellie's naturally more self-reliant and determined and has
had a hard life of it, while she"--nodding at the miniature--"had
been nursed in rose-leaves up to the time it was taken."

"I don't see just where the likeness comes in," said Ned, trying to
analyse the portrait.

"It's about the eyes and the mouth particularly, as well as a general
similitude," explained Connie.

"As I tell Nellie, she's got a vicious way of setting her lips, so," and
Mrs. Stratton, mimicking, drew the corners of her mouth down in Nellie's
style. "Then she draws her brows down till altogether she looks as though
the burden of the whole world was on her. But underneath she has the same
gentle mouth and open eyes and artist forehead as the picture and one
feels it. It's very strange, don't you know, that Geisner never seemed to
notice it and yet he generally notices everything. After all, I don't
know that it is so strange. It's human nature."

"Geisner?" said Ned, clumsily, having nothing particular to say. "Has he
seen it?"

"Once or twice," observed Connie. "It belongs to him. He leaves it with
me. That's how Harry's seen it and you. It's the only thing he values so
he takes care of it by never having it about him, you know," she added,
in the flippant way that hid her feelings.

"I suppose it is--that it's--it's the girl he--" stumbled Ned,
beginning to understand suddenly.

"That's her," said Connie, strumming some louder notes. "She died. They
had been married a few days. She was taken ill, very ill. He left her,
when her life was despaired of. She would have him go, too. She got
better a little but losing him killed her."

Ned gazed at the portrait, speechless. What were his troubles, his grief,
his sorrows, beside those of the man who had loved and lost so! Nellie at
least lived. At least he had still the hope that in the years to come he
and she might mate together. His thoughts flew back to Geisner's talk on
Love on the garden terrace, in the bright afternoon sunshine. Truly
Geisner's had been the Love