"No?" she said, turning her eyes upon him with surprise. "Why? Is she so famous?" "Exactly, yes; that is just the word. She is famous." "For what, uncle? Is she a great actress, painter, musician--what?" "She is something that the world, nowadays, reckons far above any of the classes you have named, Stella--she is a great beauty." "Oh, is that all!" said Stella, curtly. "All!" he echoed, amused. "Yes," and she nodded. "It seems so easy." "So easy!" and he laughed. "Yes," she continued; "so very easy, if you happen to be born so. There is no merit in it. And is that all she is?" He was staggered by her _sang froid_ for a moment. "Well, I was scarcely fair, perhaps. As you say, it is very easy to be a great beauty--if you are one--but it is rather difficult if you are not; but Lenore is something more than that--she is an enchantress." "That's better," remarked Stella. "I like that. And how does she enchant? Does she keep tame snakes, and play music to them, or mesmerize people, or what?" The painter laughed again with great enjoyment at her _naivete_. "You are quite a cynic, Stella. Where did you learn the trick; from your father, or is it a natural gift? No, she does not keep tame snakes, and I don't know that she has acquired the art of mesmerism; but she can charm for all that. First, she is, really and truly, very beautiful----" "Tell me what she is like?" interrupted Stella, softly. The old man paused a moment to light his pipe. "She is very fair," he said. "I know," said Stella, dreamily, and with a little smile; "with yellow hair and blue eyes, and a pink and white complexion, and blue veins and a tiny mouth." "All wrong," he said, with, a laugh. "You have, woman-like, pictured a china doll. Lenore is as unlike a china doll as it is possible to imagine. She has golden hair it is true--but golden hair, not yellow; there is a difference. Then her eyes are not blue; they are violet." "Violet!" "Violet!" he repeated, gravely. "I have seen them as violet as the flowers that grow on the bank over there. Her mouth is not small; there was never yet a woman worth a fig who had a small mouth. It is rather large than otherwise, but then it is--a mouth." "Expressive?" said Stella, quietly. "Eloquent," he corrected. "The sort of mouth that can speak volumes with a curve of the lip. You think I exaggerate? Wait until you see her." "I don't think," said Stella, slowly, "that I am particularly desirous of seeing her, uncle. It reminds me of what they say of Naples--see Naples and die! See Lenore and die!" He laughed. "Well, it is not altogether false; many have seen her--many men, and been ready to die for love of her." Stella laughed, softly. "She must be very beautiful for you to talk like this, uncle. She is charming too?" "Yes, she is charming," he said, low; "with a charm that one is bound to admit at once and unreservedly." "But what does she do?" asked Stella, with a touch of feminine impatience.