He placed before her eyes a little oval frame surrounding a profile without shading, a simple pencil sketch in which she recognized herself, surprised to find that she was so pretty, as if reflected in the magic mirror of Love. Tears came to her eyes, although she knew not why,--an open spring whose pulsing flood caused her chaste heart to beat fast. "This portrait belongs to me. It was made for me. But now, as I am on the point of going away, I am assailed by a scruple. I prefer not to keep it except from your own hands. So take it, and if you find a worthier friend, one who loves you with a deeper, truer love than mine, I authorize you to give it to him." She had recovered from her confusion, and replied, looking de Gery in the face with affectionate gravity: "If I listened to nothing but my heart, I should not hesitate to answer you; for, if you love me as you say you do, I am sure that I love you no less. But I am not free, I am not alone in life,--look!" She pointed to her father and sisters who were motioning to them in the distance and hurrying to overtake them. "Even so! And I?" said Paul eagerly. "Have I not the same duties, the same burdens? We are like two widowed heads of families. Will you not love mine as dearly as I love yours?" "Do you mean it? Is it true? You will let me stay with them? I shall be Aline to you and still be Grandmamma to all our children? Oh! then," said the dear creature, beaming with joy and radiance, "then here is my picture, I give it to you. And, with it, all my heart, and forever." XVIII. THE JENKINS PEARLS.