第124章

"Is there not a change?" said he, in a doubtful and meditativetone. "Yes; the perception of it grows more vivid the longer I look.

It is certainly the same picture that I saw yesterday; the dress-the features- all are the same; and yet something is altered.""Is then the picture less like than it was yesterday?" inquired thepainter, now drawing near, with irrepressible interest.

"The features are perfect, Elinor," answered Walter, "and, at thefirst glance, the expression seemed also hers. But, I could fancy thatthe portrait has changed countenance, while I have been looking at it.

The eyes are fixed on mine with a strangely sad and anxiousexpression. Nay, it is grief and terror! Is this like Elinor?""Compare the living face with the pictured one," said the painter.

Walter glanced sidelong at his mistress, and started. Motionlessand absorbed- fascinated, as it were- in contemplation of Walter'sportrait, Elinor's face had assumed precisely the expression ofwhich he had just been complaining. Had she practised for wholehours before a mirror, she could not have caught the look sosuccessfully. Had the picture itself been a mirror, it could nothave thrown back her present aspect with stronger and moremelancholy truth. She appeared quite unconscious of the dialoguebetween the artist and her lover.

"Elinor," exclaimed Walter, in amazement, "what change has comeover you?"She did not hear him, nor desist from her fixed gaze, till heseized her hand, and thus attracted her notice; then, with a suddentremor, she looked from the picture to the face of the original.

"Do you see no change in your portrait?" asked she.

"In mine? None!" replied Walter, examining it. "But let me see!

Yes; there is a slight change- an improvement, I think, in thepicture, though none in the likeness. It has a livelier expressionthan yesterday, as if some bright thought were flashing from the eyes,and about to be uttered from the lips. Now that I have caught thelook, it becomes very decided."While he was intent on these observations, Elinor turned to thepainter. She regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that herepaid her with sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore, shecould but vaguely guess.

"That look!" whispered she, and shuddered. "How came it there?""Madam," said the painter, sadly, taking her hand, and leadingher apart, "in both these pictures, I have painted what I saw. Theartist- the true artist- must look beneath the exterior. It is hisgift- his proudest, but often a melancholy one- to see the inmostsoul, and, by a power indefinable even to himself, to make it glowor darken upon the canvas, in glances that express the thought andsentiment of years. Would that I might convince myself of error in thepresent instance!"They had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk,hands almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church towers,thatched cottages, old thunder-stricken trees, Oriental and antiquecostume, and all such picturesque vagaries of an artist's idlemoments. Turning them over, with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketchof two figures was disclosed.

"If I have failed," continued he, "if your heart does not seeitself reflected in your own portrait- if you have no secret causeto trust my delineation of the other- it is not yet too late toalter them. I might change the action of these figures too. Butwould it influence the event?"He directed her notice to the sketch. A thrill ran through Elinor'sframe; a shriek was upon her lips; but she stifled it, with theself-command that becomes habitual to all who hide thoughts of fearand anguish within their bosoms. Turning from the table, she perceivedthat Walter had advanced near enough to have seen the sketch, thoughshe could not determine whether it had caught his eye.

"We will not have the pictures altered," said she, hastily. "Ifmine is sad, I shall but look the gayer for the contrast.""Be it so," answered the painter, bowing. "May your griefs besuch fanciful ones that only your picture may mourn for them! For yourjoys- may they be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovelyface till it quite belie my art!"After the marriage of Walter and Elinor, the pictures formed thetwo most splendid ornaments of their abode. They hung side by side,separated by a narrow panel, appearing to eye each other constantly,yet always returning the gaze of the spectator. Travelled gentlemen,who professed a knowledge of such subjects, reckoned these among themost admirable specimens of modern portraiture; while common observerscompared them with the originals, feature by feature, and wererapturous in praise of the likeness. But it was on a third class-neither travelled connoisseurs nor common observers, but people ofnatural sensibility- that the pictures wrought their strongest effect.