The dress and drapery were of black velvet, utterly bare of ornament, and out of the canvas looked a face of marvellous, yet mysteriously mournful beauty. The countenance of a comparatively young woman, whose radiant brown eyes had dwelt in some penetrale of woe, until their light was softened, saddened; whose regular features were statuesque in their solemn repose, and whose gold-tinted hair simply parted on her white round brow, fell in glinting waves down upon her polished shoulders. The mystical pale face of one who seemed alike incapable of hope or of regret, who gazed upon past, present, future, as proud, as passionless and calm as Destiny; and whose perfect hands were folded in stern fateful rest. As Regina looked up at it she stopped, then run to the hearth, and stood with her eyes riveted to the canvas, her lips parted and quivering. Watching her, Mr. Palma came to her side, and asked: "Whom can it be?" Evidently she did not hear him. Her whole heart and soul appeared centred in the picture; but as she gazed, her own eloquent face grew whiter, she drew her breath quickly, and tears rolled over her cheeks, as she lifted her arms toward the painting. "Mother I my beautiful sad-eyed mother!" Sobs shook her frame, and she pressed toward the mantelpiece till the skirt of her dress swept dangerously close to the fire. Mr. Palma drew her back, and said quietly: "For an uncultivated young rustic, I must say your appreciation of fine painting is rather surprising. Few city girls would have paid such a tearful tribute of heartfelt admiration to my pretty 'Mona Lisa.'" Without removing her fascinated eyes she asked: "When did it come?" "I have had it several days. I presume that you know it is a copy of Da Vinci's celebrated picture, upon which he worked four years, and which now hangs in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris?" She merely shook her head. "In France it is called '_La Joconde_; but I prefer the softer 'Mona Lisa' for my treasure." "Is it not mine? She must have sent it to me?" "She? Are you dreaming? Mona Lisa has been dead three hundred years!" "Mr. Palma, it is my mother. No other face ever looked like that, no other eyes except those in the _Mater Dolorosa_ resemble these beautiful sad brown eyes, that rained their tears upon my head. Do you think a child ever mistook another for her own mother? Can the face I first learned to know and to love, the lovely--oh! how lovely--face that bent over my cradle ever--ever be forgotten? If I never saw her again in this world, could I fail to recognise her in heaven? My own mother!" "Obstinate, infatuated little ignoramus! Read--and be convinced." He opened and held before her a volume of engravings of the pictures and statues in the Louvre, and turning to the Leonardo Da Vinci's, moved his fingers slowly beneath the title. Her eyes fell upon "_La Joconde_," then wandered back to the portrait over the fireplace; and through her tears broke a radiant smile.