I stole with guilty consciousness towards the picture, in whose lineaments the fastidious eye of Ernest Linwood had traced a similitude to mine. They were all engraven on my memory, but now they possessed a new fascination; and I stood before it, gazing into the soft, dark depths of the eyes, in which innocent mildness and bashful tenderness were mingled like the _clare-obscure_ of an Italian moonlight; gazing on the dawning smile that seemed to play over the beautiful and glowing lips, and the bright, rich, dark hair, so carelessly, gracefully arranged you could almost see the balmy breezes of her native clime rustling amid the silken tresses; on the charming contour of the head and neck, slightly turned as if about to look back and give a parting glance at the garden she had reluctantly quitted. As I thus stood, with my hands loaded with blossoms, a flower basket suspended from my arm, and a straw hat such as shepherdesses wear, on my head,--my garden costume,--involuntarily imitating the attitude of the lovely flower girl, the door, which had been left ajar, silently opened, and Ernest Linwood entered. Had I been detected in the act of stealing or counterfeiting money, I could not have felt more intense shame. He knew what brought me there. I saw it in his penetrating eye, his half-suppressed smile; and, ready to sink with mortification, I covered my face with the roses I held in my hands. "Do you admire the picture?" he asked, advancing to where I stood; "do you perceive the resemblance?" I shook my head without answering; I was too much disconcerted to speak. What would he think of my despicable vanity, my more than childish foolishness? "I am glad to see we have congenial tastes," he said, with a smile in his voice. "I came on purpose to gaze on that charming representation of youth and innocence, without dreaming that its original was by it." "Original!" I repeated. "Surely you do mock me,--'t is but a fancy sketch,--and in nought but youth and flowers resembles me." "We cannot see ourselves, and it is well we cannot. The image reflected from the mirror is but a cold, faint shadow of the living, breathing soul. But why this deep confusion,--that averted face and downcast eye? Have I offended by my intrusion? Do you wish me to withdraw, and yield to you the privilege of solitary admiration?" "It is I who am the intruder," I answered, looking wistfully towards the door, through which I was tempted to rush at once. "I thought you had not risen,--I thought,--I came"-- "And why did you come at this hour, Gabriella? and what has caused such excessive embarrassment? Will you not be ingenuous enough to tell me?" "I will," answered I, calmed by the gentle composure of his manner, "if you will assert that you do not know already." "I do not _know_, but I can _imagine_. Edith has betrayed my admiration of that picture. You came to justify my taste, and to establish beyond a doubt the truth of the likeness."