fevered dream. I love to think of him as dead—as taken from me when guileless and innocent as he stand in that portrait”; and with a shaking hand she indicated the veiled picture.

“Your story interests me much,” said the student respectfully. “Might I look upon the portrait for a moment? You know I paint a great deal myself; indeed, I am an enthusiast in the art, and have scarcely yet decided whether I may not follow it as a profession.”

Her answer came slowly, and with manifest reluctance.

“I care not to look upon it often myself,” she said; “but as you have shown me much kindness, and it may teach you how the most innocent may through time become corrupted, I will not say you nay.”

Walter Hutton, with an eager hand, drew aside the veil of crape, and then started back with an exclamation of wonder and delight, which merged into a breathless and ecstatic silence as he ran his eye over the beautiful picture that stood revealed. It was the picture of a young boy, whose fair cheeks were browned with the sun and flushed with happiness and exercise, with a flood of golden hair floating forward over his shoulders, as he half-slyly and half-roguishly peeped out from behind a cherry tree, playfully holding up a bunch of the red fruit in his hand. On the frame beneath was legibly painted the words, “Cherry ripe! James Lyons, aged 7.”

For some moments there was a deep silence in the room, the student being rapt in admiration, and the poor mother in memories of the past; but at last, after viewing the picture in every light, the young man’s words came in an impulsive burst:

“I have never seen anything so exquisite; it is beautiful beyond all praise!” he cried, turning to the delighted owner. “Do you not know, ma’am, that this painting is worth money—a considerable sum—perhaps one or two hundred pounds?”

A quiet smile lit up the face of his patient.

“I have been told so often in happier days, when my wee Jim was young and innocent,” she softly replied. “But in all my struggles, and they have not been few, I never even dreamed of parting with it, not only for my boy’s sake, but that of the hand that painted it. It was my husband’s last work. It was a labour of love, and could never be valued in money. A whole fortune laid at my feet would not buy it.”

The student’s faint hopes were instantly crushed, and he turned and once more gazed at the picture with a tinge of covetous envy creeping into his heart.

“I did not mean to buy it,” he said at last; “though, if you had been so inclined, I might have seen my way even to that. But would you not allow me to copy it—to incorporate it in a picture I am at present hard at work upon?”

“And then, it would be exhibited—exposed to the vulgar gaze of hundreds?” calmly inquired Mrs. Lyons.

“It would be exhibited, doubtless,” awkwardly returned the student-artist, “but it would be in a different form; and though it is possible that some who have known you in former times might see and recognise it, their comments could never injure you. Besides I would be willing to pay any sum that you might think fit to ask for the favour, and would certainly guard it, while in my possession, with even more sacred care than you can possibly exhibit.”

These last words almost died on his lips as he uttered them, for the quiet refusal was written on his patient’s face even before she spoke.

“I cannot oblige you,” was her firm reply; “I could not trust the portrait a moment from my sight.”

“But think,” he persisted. “The money—”