"Exactly. She carries her little daughter upon her back and laughs merrily. Fanciful maternity! There are mythological beauties and modern beauties. The one will be a nymph and gently rest her limbs upon the velvet sward in the genial atmosphere of a Grecian landscape; the other, muffled up to her neck, her muff pressed to her nose, in order to conceal a mouth that is a trifle expansive, elects to promenade the denuded paths of her park and leave the imprint of her tiny, fur-clad feet along the snow. It is the cold, you understand, which lends brilliancy to the eyes and a rosy tip to the ear; it is the cold that gives color and life. Thus I strive to place every human being in his or her favorite attitude, amidst congenial surroundings, beneath the ray which is best calculated to illumine. And I lie in wait for the divine moment when the woman exhales all her seduction, the man all the power of his mind." He paused for a moment. "Well, and you!" he continued quickly. "I have not found you yet; I have no hold upon you. I must attempt some subterfuge." Thereupon he raised his voice. "Frank!--Frank!" A masked door, which Esther had not remarked, opened almost immediately and a young man of perhaps two and twenty years of age appeared upon the threshold. Miss Woodville uttered a stifled cry and half rose from her chair. "My lord!" she breathed almost inaudibly; "how comes it that--you--" "I see how it is!" remarked Sir Joshua; "you are the dupe of a resemblance. Your gaze is not resting upon Lord Mowbray, but upon my apprentice, Francis Monday. My dear Frank, be good enough to fall upon your knees before this fair young woman and look at her as if you adored her." Pallid, mute, with lips tightly compressed, Frank stood motionless. "I, Sir Joshua?" he faltered. "You wish me to--" "Certainly! Now, then!" [Illustration] With evident effort the young man slowly advanced as if he were going to execution. Beads of perspiration pearled upon his brow. Nevertheless, disturbed though he was, the beauty of his features and the innate nobility of his person prevented any awkwardness of carriage. With drooping eyelids he fell upon his knees at the girl's feet, while at the moment, as if actuated by some invincible power, he raised his glance full of a desperate passion. Truly, for a timid boy taken unawares, Frank played the comedy of love like a consummate master. A rosy blush suffused Esther's features, entirely irradiating them, as a summer's sunrise illumines the delicious purity of the dawn. Astonishment, shame, pleasure, malice, every shade of sentiment was in an instant born, in an instant expired, fading in a most ravishing _mélange_. With head slightly inclined, bosom heaving, eyelids trembling, and lips quivering, her whole being vibrated in unison with the precipitate throbbing of her heart. "Rosalind listening to Orlando's declaration!" exclaimed Sir Joshua. "I have it! The portrait is assured! I have no further need of you, Frank."