onished and gladdened her new but ardent friend, by arriving at
her house with unwonted roses on her cheeks, and Gerard's pardon in her
bosom.

CHAPTER XL

Some are old in heart at forty, some are young at eighty. Margaret
Van Eyck's heart was an evergreen. She loved her young namesake with
youthful ardour. Nor was this new sentiment a mere caprice; she was
quick at reading character, and saw in Margaret Brandt that which in
one of her own sex goes far with an intelligent woman; genuineness. But,
besides her own sterling qualities, Margaret had from the first a potent
ally in the old artist's bosom.

Human nature.

Strange as it may appear to the unobservant, our hearts warm more
readily to those we have benefited than to our benefactors. Some of the
Greek philosophers noticed this; but the British Homer has stamped it in
immortal lines:--

"I heard, and thought how side by side
We two had stemmed the battle's tide
In many a well-debated field,
Where Bertram's breast was Philip's shield.
I thought on Darien's deserts pale,
Where Death bestrides the evening gale,
How o'er my friend my cloak I threw,
And fenceless faced the deadly dew.
I thought on Quariana's cliff,
Where, rescued from our foundering skiff,
Through the white breakers' wrath I bore
Exhausted Bertram to the shore:
And when his side an arrow found,
I sucked the Indian's venom'd wound.
These thoughts like torrents rushed along
To sweep away my purpose strong."

Observe! this assassin's hand is stayed by memory, not of benefits
received, but benefits conferred.

Now Margaret Van Eyck had been wonderfully kind to Margaret Brandt; had
broken through her own habits to go and see her; had nursed her, and
soothed her, and petted her, and cured her more than all the medicine in
the world. So her heart opened to the recipient of her goodness, and she
loved her now far more tenderly than she had ever loved Gerard, though,
in truth, it was purely out of regard for Gerard she had visited her in
the first instance.

When, therefore, she saw the roses on Margaret's cheek, and read the
bit of parchment that had brought them there, she gave up her own views
without a murmur.

"Sweetheart," said she, "I did desire he should stay in Italy five
or six years, and come back rich, and above all, an artist. But your
happiness is before all, and I see you cannot live without him, s