that it was a very valuable painting, worth fabulous sums. I can affirm to-day that it is really a fine work; but it is not by Velasquez. It is by Mazo, and is, in fact, only a slightly modified copy of Velasquez’s famous portrait of Philip in the Louvre. This picture had always had an odd fascination for me, though there was something about the face I did not like, something cold and proud, which I knew I should have detested in actual life. I gazed at it now stupidly enough, and then I had a nervous thrill, for it seemed to me to have come all at once to life. One part of my brain knew this to be nonsense, and that I had been seeing queer things all day, but the other part of my brain continued to watch it, with a half expectation of seeing it descend out of its frame. The eyes had begun to move, and the lips trembled; the mouth opened slowly in a yawn which the brown gloved hand was raised languidly to conceal; and then from behind the picture I heard a little mocking laugh. These things bewildered me, but did not startle me; and through them I became conscious that Mrs. Carroll was coming up the stair and that she was speaking to me. I answered her in words which I knew were perfectly idiotic, and which moreover sounded husky and strange, as if some other voice than my own were speaking through my lips. Again I heard the little mocking laugh. This time I thought it came from the top of the picture, and glancing up I saw, sure enough, a black imp, like a small, naked, negro boy, perched cross-legged, on the top of the frame, from which he grinned down at me impudently, raising his fingers to his snub nose, and spreading them out in a derisive and very familiar grimace. I began to talk about the picture, about school, and about Miss McWaters. Then a cloud waved back from my brain; the portrait slid into its place, the imp disappeared, and everything was once more as it should be. But I felt a burning thirst, and when Mrs. Carroll opened the door of a large, bright, sunny room, I was glad to fling myself down on the bed. Almost immediately I was seized by a deadly sickness. I managed to get off the bed in time to avoid making a mess, but the vomiting returned again and again, till I collapsed into a state of exhaustion. Heavy clouds waved across my brain, obscuring my thoughts, and again clearing, leaving consciousness to flicker up, like the flame in a dying lamp, so that I knew I had been undressed and was safe in bed. And all the time I wanted to drink――to drink.... More than one person was in the room with me; Mrs. Carroll was there, and old Doctor O’Brian. In the open doorway Miss Dick hovered. And then suddenly I was alone. I could hear a fire crackling in the grate, and it had grown darker. A lamp was burning on a table somewhere over beside the fireplace. I listened to the fire, and presently it seemed to me I could hear the lamp burning too. It burned with a soft low continuous