h make her a
declaration of love in the presence of witnesses."

The sculptor still remained silent. At last he said, dryly,

"You may set your mind at rest, Angelica. Don't you know very well that
this is not only your best picture, but, moreover, a most excellent
performance, such as one only too seldom meets with nowadays?"

A deep blush of joyful embarrassment suffused the good-natured, round
face of the painter.

"Is that your candid opinion?" cried she. "Oh, my dear Jansen! if it
only is not meant as a salve for the goadings of my own conscience--"

Jansen did not answer. He was once more deeply absorbed in the
contemplation of the picture. Now and then he cast a critical glance at
the original, who stood quietly by and appeared to be thinking of other
things.

In the mean while Edward labored zealously to efface the bad opinion
that Angelica had formed of his love for critical mockery. He praised
the work highly in detail--the drawing, the arrangement, the successful
coloring, and the simple light effects, and what he found to criticise
in the details of the technique only served to heighten the worth of
his commendation as a whole.

"But, do you know," he said, enthusiastically, "this is only one way to
do it, a very skillful and talented way, but by no means the only one.
What do you say, for instance, to dark-red velvet, a light golden chain
around the neck, a dark carnation in the hair--_a la Paris Bordone_? or
a gold brocade--I happen to have a magnificent genuine costume at home,
that was sent to me last week from Venice? or shall we have simply the
hair disheveled, a dark dress, behind it a laurel-bush--"

"And so on, with graces _in infinitum_!" laughed the painter. "You must
know, Julie, this gentleman has already painted thousands of the most
magnificent pictures--unfortunately nearly all in imagination. No, my
dear Rossel, we are obliged to you. We are only too glad to have
accomplished it in this very modest way, and to have received so
favorable a criticism. My dear friend, although she is an angel of
patience, has had quite enough to do with the fine arts for some time
to come."

"O, Angelica!" sighed Rossel with comical pathos, "you are merely
jealous: you will vouchsafe to no other person the good fortune that
has been accorded to you. Now, what if I had always been waiting for
just such a task, so that I, too, might produce something immortal?"

"You?--your laziness is all that is imm