personal unpopularity, your magnanimous guardian organized a cabal against him. No sooner was the painting exhibited, than a tirade of ridicule and abuse was poured upon it, and the journal most influential in forming and directing artistic taste, contained an overwhelmingly adverse criticism, which was written by a particular friend and chum of Erle Palma, who, I am convinced, caused its preparation. Oh, Regina! it was a cruel, cruel stab, that entered my darling's noble tender heart, and almost maddened him. In literature, savage criticism defeats its own unamiable purpose, by promoting the sale of books it is designed to crush; but unfortunately this law does not often operate in the department of painting. In a fit of gloomy despondency, Belmont offered his lovely work for a mere trifle, but the picture dealers declined to touch it at any price, and rashly cutting it from the frame, he threw the labour of years into the flames. Meantime grand-mamma had died, and Belmont's mother became hopelessly bedridden, while his young brother had made his way to Europe, where he occupied a menial position in a sculptor's _atelier_ at Florence. A more rigid surveillance was exerted over me, and the dancing dervishes crowned me queen of their revels. By day and by night I was surrounded with influence intended to beguile me from the past, to narcotize memory, to make me in reality the heartless, soulless, scoffing creature that I certainly seem. But Erle Palma has found me stiff tough clay, and despite his efforts, I have been true to the one love of my life. What I have suffered, none but the listening watching God above us knows; and sometimes I despise and loathe myself for the miserable subterfuges I am forced to practise in order to elude my keepers. Poor mamma loves me, after a selfish worldly fashion, and there are moments when I really think she pities me; but from Palma influence and association wealth has long been her most precious fetich. Poverty, obscurity terrify her, and for the fleshpots of fashion she would literally sell me, as she once sold herself to Godwin Palma. Repeatedly I have been urged to accept offers of marriage that revolted every instinct of my nature, that seemed insulting to a woman who long ago gave away all that was best, in her heart's idolatrous love. To-day my Belmont is ten-fold dearer, than when in the dawning flush of womanhood, I plighted my lifelong faith to him; and reigns more royally than ever over all that is good and true in my perverted and cynical nature. I cling to him, to my faith in his noble, manly, unselfish, undying love for me, unworthy as I have grown, even as a drowning wretch to some overhanging bough, which alone saves her from the black destruction beneath. Unable to conquer the opposition he encountered here, Belmont went West, and finally strayed into the solitudes of Oregon and British America. At one time, for a year, I did not know whether