occasion, however, when Mr. Trefalden knocked
at the door of the house for which he was bound,
both van and Italian boy were at the further end
of the row.

A slatternly servant of hostile bearing opened
six inches of the door, and asked Mr. Trefalden
what he wanted. That gentleman intimated
that he wished to see Mrs. Rivière.

"Is it business?" said the girl, planting
her foot sturdily against the inner side of the
door.

Mr. Trefalden at once admitted that it was
business.

"Then it's Miss Rivers you want," said she,
sharply. " Why didn't you say so at first?"

Mr. Trefalden attempted to explain that he
should prefer to see Mrs. Rivière, if she would
receive him; but the belligerent damsel
refused to entertain that proposition for one
moment.

"It's nothing to me what you prefer," said
she, with prompt indignation. " You can't see
Mrs. Rivers. If Miss Rivers won't do, you
may as well go away at once."

So the lawyer was fain to enter the citadel
on such terms as he could get.

He was shown into a front parlour, very
poorly furnished. The window was partially
darkened by a black blind, and close beneath
it stood a table strewn with small photographs
and drawing materials. A bonnet and shawl
lay on the sofa behind the door. Three or four
slight sketches in water-colours were pinned
against the walls. An old-fashioned watch in
a bronze stand of delicate foreign workmanship,
occupied the centre of the mantelshelf; and in
the further corner of the room, between the
fireplace and window, were piled a number of
old canvases with their faces to the wall. Mr.
Trefalden divined the history of these little
accessories at a glance. He knew, as well as if
their owners had told him so, that the watch
and the canvases were relics of poor Edgar
Rivière, and that the little water-colour sketches
were by the artist's daughter. These latter
were very slight—mere outlines, with a dash of
colour here and there—but singularly free
and decisive. One represented a fragment of
Cyclopean wall, tapestried with creeping plants;
another, a lonely mediæval tower, with ragged
storm-clouds drifting overhead; another, a group
of stone pines at sunset, standing up, bronzed
and bristling, against a blood-red sky. All were
instinct with that open-air look which defies
imitation; and in the background of almost
every subject were seen the purple Tuscan hills.
William Trefalden was no indifferent judge of
art, and he saw at once that these scrawls had
genius in them.

While he was yet examining them, the door
opened noiselessly behind him, and a rustling
of soft garments near at hand warned him that
he was no longer alone. He turned. A young
girl, meanly dressed in some black material,
with only a slip of white collar round her throat,
stood about half way between the window and
the door a girl so fair, so slight, so transparent
of complexion, so inexpressibly fragile-looking,
that the lawyer, for the first moment, could
only look at her as if she wore some delicate
marvel of art, neither to be touched nor spoken
to.

"You asked to see me, sir?" she said, with
a transient flush of colour; for Mr. Trefalden
still looked at her in silence.

"I asked to see Mrs. Rivière," he replied.

The young lady pointed to a chair.

"My mother is an invalid," she said, " and
can only be addressed through me. Will you
take a seat?"

But Mr. Trefalden, instead of taking a seat,
went over to the corner where the dusty
canvases were piled against the wall, and
said:

"Are these some of your father's pictures?"

Her whole face became radiant at the mention
of that name.

"Yes," she replied, eagerly. " Do you know
his works?"

Mr. Trefalden paused a moment before
answering this question. Then, looking at her
with a grave, almost a tender courtesy, he
said:

"I knew his works, my dear young lady—-
and I knew him."

"You knew him? Oh, you knew a good
man, sir, if you knew my dear, dear father!"

"A good man," said Mr. Trefalden, " and a
fine painter."

Her eyes filled witli sudden tears.

"If the world had but done him justice!"
she murmured.

Mr. Trefalden thought he had never seen
eyes so beautiful or so pathetic.

"The world never does justice to its finer
spirits," said he, " till they nave passed beyond
reach of its envy or hearing of its praise. But
his day of justice will come."

"Do you think so?" she said, drawing a
little nearer, and looking up at him with the
half-timid, half-trusting candour of a child.
"Alas! I have almost given up hoping."

"Never give up hoping. There is nothing
in this world so unstable as its injustice
nothing so inevitable as its law of reward and
retribution. Unhappily, its laurels are too often
showered upon tombs."

"Did you know him in Italy?"

"No—- in England."

"Perhaps you were one of his fellow-
students?"

Mr. Trefalden shook his head.

"No; I am a true lover of the arts," he
replied, " but no artist. I had a sincere
admiration for your father's genius, Miss Rivière,
and it is that admiration which brings me here
to-day. I am anxious to know what pictures
of his may still be in the possession of his
family, and I should be glad to purchase some,
if I might be allowed to do so."

A look of intense gladness, followed by one
of still more intense pain, flashed over the girl's
pale face at these words.

"I trust I have said nothing to annoy you,"