She was scarcely seventeen, of a petite figure, and her face, in the softness and delicacy of its outline, seemed almost childish. Golden curls clustered around her pure, sweet brow, lay against the sunny bloom of her cheek, and fell in a bright shower over her dimpled and snowy shoulders. Her eyes had that summer’s day radiance given only to eyes of blue—her soft lips were of the richest red, and seemed moulded to thoughts of lovingness, and gentleness, and happiness. It was a face into which you could not look without the conviction that it had never known aught but sunshine and love—that the dark truths of the world were to its owner, but unreal visions of a far-off future. No deep tide of feeling, no storm of strong passions had left its impress there; yet the face so exquisite in its infantile loveliness, was not without its signs of latent power. There was often a deepening of the light within those soft eyes, an earnest compressing of the full lips, that were a prophecy of a higher type of beauty for her maturer womanhood. And Edgar Loring loved sweet Emily Hastings, although he had not yet told her of it save by looks and tones perhaps as unmistakable as words. He loved her fondly, almost passionately, _next to himself and fame_. Intensely selfish and insatiably ambitious, he was ignorant of his incapacity for a great and generous love. Possessed of a good education, and a fine share of talent if not genius, he had come to the city, with no friends but these and his remarkably handsome person, filled with the determination of making to himself a name. Accident had brought him into contact with a few influential persons, and he soon became known among a certain clique as a young man whom it were well worth while to patronize. He had been in the city a little more than two years, and had painted several portraits in good families, when he met with Emily Hastings, the daughter of one of his patrons. Her beauty delighted his artistic eye, her winning gentleness captivated his heart, her position in society was a mark for his ambition. Well assured of his growing love for her, he was also far from insensible to the advantages which a union with her would confer. Mr. Hastings, although a man of wealth and high-standing, was free from the weak prejudices of many of his class, and Edgar knew that were his daughter’s heart bestowed upon a man of education and character, he would not be looked upon as unworthy, even though penniless. Could he win Emily’s love, he felt that her father’s approval was sure, and in all his thoughts of the future, he pictured himself a distinguished artist, and the husband of Emily Hastings.