At eleven the following morning the lady was alone in her simply furnished apartment, in a boarding-house on Tenth street. The beauty which had dazzled all who beheld her on the previous night, did not owe any thing to dress or to lamp-light, it bore the inquisitive glance of the sunshine well. Alice received her guests, the Hon. Frank Dundas, and the artist Martin Gray, with a grace and ease of manner which delighted them. She spoke with the enthusiasm of youth of the art in which she was so great a proficient, and every word she uttered revealed a mind well cultivated, refined, and innately noble. A half hour passed speedily by, but the Honorable gave no sign of an intention to depart. The artist, who had surveyed her as he would an exquisite production of art, first rising to take his leave, said—“I have a favor to urge, madam, it is a very great one; I am painting a series of portraits, will you permit me to take yours as a representation of Noonday?” “It would be a very poor representative of the glory and majesty of the theme you have chosen. Pardon me, I must decline an honor so unmerited.” “Permit _me_ to judge that,” said Martin Gray earnestly. “It is an idea I have long desired to carry out; I wished to make the picture an exact likeness, and therefore sought a beauty that was perfect, so there should be no work left for my imagination—now that the object of my long search is found, do not deny me this great privilege. If you will only accompany some of your friends to my studio, by showing to you the Sunrise, I can better explain what it is I wish; or perhaps you will suffer me either now or to-morrow to escort you thither.” “To-morrow,” she answered, “I will come. Ere then you may, I trust, find one elsewhere to represent your ideal.” “That is utterly impossible. To-morrow, then, before the rooms are filled with visiters, I shall look for you,” said Martin, with a decidedly grateful accent and look, and the young men walked slowly away. CHAPTER III. The Noonday was nearly finished. The city was ringing with the surpassing beauty and the matchless voice of the young singer Alice. And Martin Gray’s numerous and powerful friends every where declared that the picture on which he worked so diligently, would add the greenest leaf to his glory-wreath. The artist loved his picture—loved he the original? No! he could have worshiped the canvas on which that matchless face was impressed, but when he looked on Alice, and listened to her beautiful words and the so musical, delicious pronunciation, though he saw and heard with the most enthusiastic admiration, it was still only that of the artist—the _man’s_ heart was untouched. He had never shown to her the “child-angel.” After his call upon “Alice,” so strengthened was become Martin Gray’s persuasion that it was _the_ Alice of bygone recollections, that he feared to hazard the display of the portrait to her.