But we are now speaking of art, while we should have more to say (for it concerns us more) of the character of the young woman who was destined to figure in a stranger way than in making beautiful figures on silk. Mysie was one of a class; few in number they are indeed, but on that account more to be prized. Her taste and fine manipulations were but counterparts of qualities of the heart--an organ to which the pale face, with its delicate lines, and the clear liquid eyes, was a suitable index. The refinement which enabled her to make her imitation of beautiful objects on the delicate material of her work was only another form of a sensibility which pervaded her whole nature--that gift which is only conceded to peculiar organisations, and is such a doubtful one, too, if we go, as we cannot help doing, with the poet, when he sings that “chords that vibrate sweetest pleasures,” often also “thrill the deepest notes of woe.” Nay, we might say that the creatures themselves seem to fear the gift, for they shrink from the touch of the rough world, and retire within themselves as if to avoid it, while they are only courting its effects in the play of an imagination much too ardent for the duties of life. And, as a consequence, how they seek secretly the support of stronger natures, clinging to them as do those strange plants called parasites, which, with their tender arms and something so like fingers, cling to the nearest stem of a stouter neighbour, and embracing it, even though hollow and rotten, cover it, and choke it with a flood of flowers. So true is it that woman, like the generous vine, lives by being supported and held up; yet equally true that the strength she gains is from the embrace she gives, and so it is also that goodness, as our Scottish poet Home says, often wounds itself, and affection proves the spring of sorrow.