under those brows which were like delicate little
flames, her eyes began to grow mild, to lose their tears and
their irony, until they took on an expression of such delight, as
if they were looking at an idyl.

Meanwhile the air, modified by the gray twilight, was cut by a
bright moving line. This was Cara going from her father's study
with Puff tugging at her skirt. She hummed a song as she went
forward. When she saw her sister she ceased humming, and called
out from the end of the drawing-room:

"Do you know, Ira, father will dine with us to-day?"

In her voice a note of triumph was heard. After many weeks her
father would sit for the first time with them at the family
table, and then everything would go on as it should go. What it
was that went ill, and why it went so, she knew not. But she had
been observing, was astonished, and had fears. With that real
sixth sense, which persons of keen sensitiveness possess, she
felt something. She felt in the air a certain oppression, a
certain trouble, and, not knowing what these signified, nor
whence they were coming, she suffered. In the very same way,
organisms with supersensitive nerves feel the approach of
atmospheric storms. Now she advanced with a short step, erect and
slender, with Puff at her skirt, while she hummed joyously.

When Irene entered her mother's study soon after, she saw, by the
lamplight, a group composed of three persons. Sitting on the
sofa, with glitters of black jet in her light hair, was Malvina
Darvid; nearby, in a low armchair, inclining toward her, was
Maryan, elegant as usual, and before him, with elbows resting on
her mother's knees, knelt Cara, a bright, blue strip lying across
the black silk robe of her mother.

"A picture deserving the eyes of Sarah and Rebecca!" suggested
Irene, going straight to the mirror before which she began, with
raised arms, to arrange and modify the knot of hair on her head.
Maryan, in good humor, was imploring his mother to let him have
her portrait painted by one of the most noted artists in the
city.

"His brush is famous! I cannot understand how, amid the
effeteness of this city, a talent can rise which is so fresh and
individual. In his landscapes there is a magnificent pleinair,
and as a portrait painter he knows how to seize the soul. My
mother, let me have your soul enchanted into a portrait--have you
noticed that the eyes of some portraits look on us from beyond
this world? There is an enchanted s