“Oh, it is a wonderful picture that he is painting!” she said. “It is the picture of a great queen, with a man kneeling at her feet, and I am the queen. I sit with a beautiful fur mantle over my shoulder, and, would you believe it, before I have been sitting five minutes I begin to feel as though I really were a queen. He is a great artist. Mamma sits looking at the picture that he is painting hour after hour. It is a wonderful likeness. And his mother is so kind to me. She has given me such beautiful dresses. And not a day goes by but what I learn something new and good from her. I am so ashamed of my ignorance.” “Each time I see her,” thought Berman, “she grows more beautiful. How could anyone help painting a beautiful picture of her? She is growing like a flower. She is too good, too sweet, too beautiful for me!” The blow came swiftly, unexpectedly. She came to his home while he sat at supper with his parents. “Do not blame me,” she said. “I prayed night after night to God to make me love you, but it would not come. It is better to find it out before it is too late. You have been so kind, so good to me that it breaks my heart. Is it not better to come to you and to tell the truth?” Berman had turned pale. “Is it the painter?” he whispered. A flood of colour surged to Deborah’s cheeks. Her eyes fell before his. “He is a Christian, Deborah—a Christian!” he murmured, hoarsely. Then Deborah’s colour left her cheeks, and the tears started to her eyes. “I know it! I know it! But——” Then with an effort she drew herself up. “It is better that we should part. Good-bye!” “Good-bye!” said Berman. And his father arose and called after the departing figure: “The peace of God go with you!” With an artist’s eye Hazard had been quick to perceive the beauty of Deborah, and the possibilities of its development, and, with an artist’s temperament, he derived the keenest pleasure from watching that beauty grow and unfold. Her frequent presence, the touch of her hand and cheek as he helped her to pose, her merry laughter, and, above all, those big, trusting brown eyes in which he read, as clear as print, her love, her adoration for himself, all began to have their effect upon him. And, one day, when they were alone, and suddenly looking up, he had surprised in her eyes a look of such tenderness and sweetness that his brain reeled, he flung his brush angrily to the floor and cried: “Confound it, Deborah, I can’t marry you!” Deborah, without surprise, without wonderment, began to cry softly: “I know it! I have always known it!” she said. And when he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks he sprang to her side and clasped her in his arms, and whispered words of love in her ear, and kissed her again and again.