'Is it that you would paint a portrait of me?' said Almara simply. 'Merely a sketch, dear monsieur,' put in the mother persuasively. 'The opportunity may not again occur for us. It is not often one has the fortune to meet Monsieur Campbell.' 'And there can be but one Monsieur Campbell in the world,' added the Count with a bow. 'Something at all events--a likeness merely--a work of three days,' subjoined Madame earnestly. I had had time to suppress the first impulse of delight, and to command my face to an expression of polite affability. In this so-called favour I recognised the agency of the Countess Almara. To the father and mother it meant securing a likeness of their daughter from the hand of the first portrait-painter of the day; but to that painter and to that daughter it meant hours spent in comparatively undisturbed enjoyment of one another's society--hours of silent sympathies, of low-spoken words that sounded little but meant much; hours that would count for years in the progress of a mutual understanding where each sought to reveal all and withhold nothing. 'It will give me great pleasure to sketch Mademoiselle,' said I. 'Four or five sittings will suffice. To-morrow, after the bath, we will speak further on the subject. At present I must retire. Madame the Countess, monsieur, mademoiselle, _au revoir_.' 'Good-night, Campbell,' spoke up Jeff as I moved away. 'Thank you ever so much; but you must expect to find me a severe critic. _Au revoir._' IX. But our drama was not to reach its conclusion without a modicum of the tragic element, and this modicum was to be introduced by no less heroic a character than the little poet of Beacon Hill. It is yet early to point the moral of my tale; but I may remark that we are not seldom helped along the path of life, and even have our true direction pointed out to us, by ineffective obstacles. The person or circumstance obstructing us first arouses us to appreciate the advantages of a course which we might else never have thought of, or, having thought of, might have lacked energy to pursue.