"
At this moment, in spite of Triplet's precaution, Mrs. Vane, casting her
eye accidentally round, caught sight of the picture, and instantly
started up, crying, "She is there!" Triplet was thunderstruck. "What
likeness!" cried she, and moved toward the supposed picture.
"Don't go to it!" cried Triplet, aghast; "the color is wet."
She stopped; but her eye and her very soul dwelt upon the supposed
picture; and Triplet stood quaking. "How like! It seems to breathe. You
are a great painter, sir. A glass is not truer."
Triplet, hardly knowing what he said, muttered something about "critics
and lights and shades."
"Then they are blind!" cried Mabel, never for a moment removing her eye
from the object. "Tell me not of lights and shades. The pictures I see
have a look of paint; but yours looks like life. Oh, that she were here,
as this _wonderful_ image of hers is. I would speak to her. I am not wise
or learned; but orators never pleaded as I would plead to her for my
Ernest's heart." Still her eye glanced upon the picture; and I suppose
her heart realized an actual presence, though her judgment did not; for
by some irresistible impulse she sank slowly down and stretched her
clasped hands toward it, while sobs and words seemed to break direct from
her bursting heart. "Oh, yes! you are beautiful, you are gifted, and the
eyes of thousands wait upon your very word and look.
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