nauseated her and oppressed her lungs, had often kept her toiling when she should have rested. It was a pale face that was reflected in the long cinquecento mirror that adorned the lonely studio.

Giuditta had her own theory about America's paleness. It was, she said, the thickness of her dark locks.

"All her life," maintained Giuditta, "was in her long, long hair. A pity; yet, after all, the signorina's only beauty was her hair."

And Giuditta spoke truly, for a certain attenuation both of face and form, and an utter absence of bloom, made America lack attractiveness. It might be that a great spirituality of expression made up for that in some eyes, but it is at the rose that one looks, and not at the grass beside it.

The picture the one picture, the fruit of these silent and, one might almost say, penitential years-was, indeed, a thing of beauty. All that America's own face lacked of beauty, or her form of symmetry, she had given to the white-winged angel-the guardian spirit which, bending above a dead child, is about to bear it to realms celestial. What a countenance! Upon it shone, indeed, the light ineffable. Those eyes had never looked upon earth or sinfulness. Not more radiant the stainless wings than the immaculate brow, not purer the snowy robes than the features clear with a heavenly lustre.

And in all points the picture was a faithful and conscientious work. How truthful in their rigidity the limbs of the fair dead child; dank with the dews of death its dusky hair; over its eyes the impenetrable vail, never again to be lifted, except to a supernatural glory! The crucifix above the couch bearing a Sacred Form, the draperies on bed and wall, all bore the same impress of an art that did not scorn detail, though marked by the unmistakable stamp of a noble genius.

Anselmo Truffi, in his delight, must needs suggest to the signorina the propriety of going to Paris to sell this "so-beautiful picture," as he called it. He himself must go to Paris; he needed various implements of his art that he could better select there than elsewhere, and Giuditta should see Paris also. The picture would be so different from much exhibited there; "a pure subject and a pure school." There was a lady, too-a very wealthy MoldoWallachian-who bought whatever struck her fancy. He knew her. They would exhibit the picture. They would see the countess. The signorina needed rest.

So, ten days after the completion of the picture, the trio departed.

CHAPTER IL

THE COUNTESS.

THERE was certainly every indication of a wealth profuse and lavish in the residence of the Countess Ilmar. Gunilde Ilmar was not one to deny herself anything. The very bronze in her hall had cost a small fortune. Doré had painted, after Scandinavian legendary subjects, the superb panels that decorated her reception-rooms, and had condescended to do more than daub them. The "Turkish interior" yonder is a Gérome, may it please you, and that group of ladies under trees of the Boulogne woods a Bouguereau.

Gunilde herself harmonized with all this gorgeousness as a diamond with its setting. This America Lenley remarked to Truffi when they, in obedience to her invitation, visited the Moldo-Wallachian; but the old man, who could be sarcastic if he liked, said: "Not a diamond, signorina, not a diamond. I put her not higher than a topaz," which remark, if the countess had heard it, would not, as may be supposed, have pleased her in the least.

Ah, good Anselmo Truffi, why did you not try to sell in Rome the lovely picture by your former patron's daughter? For it is here, in this Paris-here in the house of the great lady who is, you flatter yourself, to lavish her gold to purchase the "Loving Messenger," that the young girl meets that man who is to become the arbiter of a destiny that might, it may be, have been avoided in the happy, though obscure, Roman studio. For America Lenley was doomed to love unloved. Strange that even genius is not a guardian to the heart's weakness, and that the mind, strong enough to have wrestled with discouragement and toil, could not resist the call to an unwelcome slavery of soul !

The countess, dazzling in her sweeping robes of seagreen silk, that form an eccentric offset for her snowy arms and the whirling waves of long, unbraided auburn hair-it was a whim of hers to wear it loose-entered, followed by America Lenley's fate, in the shape of young Lord Selinghurst.

A noble head, clustering, Byron-like rings of golden hair close against the brow; a graceful form and an eager, excitable, enthusiastic manner-such is Algernon Selinghurst.

Differing essentially from anything that had met as yet America's eyes, to her he seemed a revelation of all that was brighest and best, as, when presented by the Countess Gunilde, he began to commence flattering upon her “remarkable painting."

"Delightful young man," said the countess, in an undertone, to Truffi "I met him on that most beautiful Righi. He is a little too much what one might call impassioned, if you will, but that is very delightful in 'this cynical Paris. He admires me, oh, so much !"-this with a rolling-up of superbly fringed eyes-the countess had black eyes, brows and lashes, though her hair was light— and a sweep of her golden pheasant fan-"infatuated !" A pause. "Ah, well, we must not listen to our hearts !"

America, talking with Lord Algernon, hears nothing of this; but Truffi, who had it settled in his own mind long before, in view of the fact that a certain handsome young Italian-a nobleman, but poor-had broken his life to unmendable pieces under the countess's general sway, muttered, almost audibly :

"Hearts!-yours is a tougher stone than I could find in our Coliseum, and soaked through as thoroughly as its earth with the blood of stricken creatures! Hearts, Santa Maria!-she talks of hearts!"

Now it happened that Truffi, poor painter though he was, stood high in the esteem of a certain East India nabob, unmarried and eccentric, whom the engaging countess yearned to know.

The nabob was of English parentage, though born in the East Indies, and averse to society. He was enormously wealthy.

The countess had made more than one effort to become acquainted with Mr. Belgrade, untitled though he was. In fact, as the countess would have said to her only confidential friend, a fat old German baroness, too stupid to be anything but a good listener:

"There must be an end some time. If I don't marry soon some rich man, all goes down, down, down !"

The countess's peculiar phraseology was a mixture of that acquired in many London seasons, in a few in Paris and Italy, and a natural carelessness of speech.

"Why, then," the good old baroness would say, "do you keep that young nobleman hovering about you? He has nothing but a much-hampered estate, and that poor fellow loves you."

"How dull you are, Clara! Don't you know that I

must have some one to make delightful speeches to me? I must! It is a necessity of my nature. I am a poetess in every feeling. Music, art, wealth and an adoring suitor! Without these as well a convent, dry bread! Let me grind my little ax, but oh, let me live happily, til I take my own ax and chop my head off!"

Bewildered by the figures of a speech so extraordinary at all times, Baroness Van Rosenthal would settle her wonderful wig, sigh and be silent.

The countess turns now to Truffi.

"How much does the signorina ask for her picture ?" Truffi names the price.

"You remember the 'Death of Adonis' that young Brisbaron painted for me? Well, the nabob, Mr. Belgrade, who saw it on the easel when I bought it right over his head, still wants it. Bring him to me, let him buy it, and I will take the Signorina Lenley's 'Loving Messenger.' And," added the countess, under her breath, "it will be a great thing for her to have her first picture seen in my rooms."

Angry at this patronage so much more than patronizing of a genius so delicate by a purchaser so venal, Truffi replied, haughtily:

"The Signorina Lenley will not need such aids. Her success is sure. The picture has struck the public, if I may so speak, in the centre of the forehead. She will go

"Not very long, I imagine," muttered the countess to herself, as she gave America a look that took her in from head to foot, "unless she gets some flesh on her bones and some color in her cheeks. Paint-poisoned, I should say, like poor Brisbaron-don't use the odorless colors, and, I should say, is consumptive by nature."

Now, Truffi was desirous that the countess should buy the "Loving Messenger," though averse to her doing it as though it were a favor. He promised to bring the nabob, and after some further conversation, it was settled that he should do so, if possible, on the following day.

That day, while the nabob and the countess settle the purchase of the "Death of Adonis," and the eyes of that lady-so Truffi assured his sister Giuditta-"spoke all the languages, ancient and modern," for that gentleman's benefit, Lord Algernon Selinghurst, in America's studio, is so enthusiastic as to her talent, so assiduous, so-as the poor girl says to herself "charming," that a trouble enters her fluttering heart such as never before stirred its pulses. What was this? Love?

Next day the "Loving Messenger" found its way to the rooms of the Moldo-Wallachian, and Gunilde informed everybody who beheld it that it was "The only picture the artist has ever painted. Wonderful, is it not? Everybody says so. It may remain unique, you see. Delicate lungs, and always a chance of fever in that dreadful Rome !"

CHAPTER III.

FAUST.

THE aged Faust, renovated by Mephistopheles through all his semblance of youthful ardor, must have retained that sneer of experience, so as to word the thought, that conversation of the devil brought with it.

of Voltaire, and with the same attenuated outlines-grew darker, and he almost glared at the young lord as he entered with his gliding step and suave bow the countess's flower-bedecked morning retreat.

Turn now, and fly for ever, Algernon Selinghurst ! There is still time. Deeply as the soul is enslaved, it is not yet so to very despair. You love her she is but using you to spur on this rich old man, as she had hoped to stimulate others by your presence and evident idolatry. Something may yet be saved of hope and gladness.

The beautiful siren's snowy hand, which will never bat in yours with one pulse of love-which never yet gave yours the warm clasp it craves-has not yet lured you to the very verge of that precipice at the base of which lies doom. Fly-fly now! But he will not fly, now or ever, while she will receive him.

To drink in life from that so faultless face, to mark the curves of those perfect lips, to watch the motion of that glorious form-this has made up the sum and purpose of the young man's life for months; and he believes that Gunilde Ilmar-hovering on the brink of social ruin from the exposure of her debts and almost poverty, the treasures of her sumptuous rooms being all she really possesses, except a few jewels-will marry him.

Has she not led him to think that she would settle herself in the humdrum solitude of his estate-Aspen Hall? She will be content, she tells him-content with him and love!

Oh, unsophisticated simplicity of youth and candor ? The Moldo-Wallachian scarcely believes that there is such a thing anywhere, and if in you-why, good look simply bestowed you upon her for the time being, that, properly strung up, the deliciously wealthy Mr. Belgrade might. seeing you enslaved, fall himself into like bondage. Reasoning like a very Macbeth,

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly "—

the nabob, on the eleventh day of the sixth week of his acquaintance with the countess, proposes that in his delectable society she shall forget the tragic death of her whilom spouse, killed at a boar-hunt in the company of a sovereign prince; and, placing her snowy palm in his yellow one-quite the color of his own rupees-swear "till death do them part" to be his own. Touching picture!

It now became necessary-the nabob's proposals being accepted-to conceal this fact till it should be too late to hide its result-the marriage-from Lord Algernon.

Something told the countess that, though she had fooled him "to the top of his bent," she had played with a nature of which the ardor made it dangerous. What might follow the knowledge of her present determination Gunilde could not guess. What tragedy!

But that there would be some terrible consequence as the fruit of her cruel duplicity, this woman, harder of heart than would seem compatible with such insight into an ardent character as her fear evinced, was becoming tremblingly certain.

The livid pallor that overspread the young lord's face at the sight of the nabob's equipage at her door, his eager questioning, all argued evil to her-evil to another she had ever cared little for.