I have spoken of three paintings which excited my attention the day I paid my first visit. These were masterpieces,--three portraits, not life-like, but life itself. They did not attract by the perpetual stare of the eyes following one, whichever way one turned, as in many pictures; in these the eyes were not thrown on the spectator. One portrait was that of a man of at least fifty: an intellectual head; eyes, I know not what they were,--fierce, defiant, hardly human, but earthly, devilish; a mouth repulsive to behold, in its eager, absorbing, selfish expression. Another,--the same person evidently: the same clear breadth and development of brain, but a subdued and almost heavenly expression of the eyes, while the mouth was quite a secondary feature, scarcely disagreeable. The third was the likeness of a young girl, beautiful, even to perfection. What character, what firmness, what power to love could be read in those features! What hate, what revulsion, what undying energy for the true and the right were there! A fair, young creation,--so fair and so young, it seemed impossible that her destiny should be an unhappy one: yet her destiny was unhappy. The shadow on the brow, the melancholy which softened the clear hazel eye, the slightest possible compression of the mouth, said,--"_Destined to misfortune!_" Were these actual portraits of living persons, or at least of persons who had lived? Was there any connection between the man with two faces and two lives and the maiden with an unhappy destiny? After I became better acquainted with M---y, I asked him the question, and in reply he told me the following story, which I now give as nearly as possible in his own words. * * * * *