There was an authority in the tone of the question which Lawrence Newt found hard to resist. It was an authority natural to such intimate knowledge of the relation of the two persons. But he was so entirely unaccustomed to confide in any body, or to speak of his feelings, that he could not utter a word. He merely looked at Aunt Martha as if he expected her to answer all her own questions, and solve every difficulty and doubt. Meanwhile she had resumed her sewing, and was rocking quietly in her chair. Lawrence Newt arose and found his tongue. He bowed in that quaint way which seemed to involve him more closely in himself, and to warn off every body else. "I prefer to hear that a woman loves me from her own lips." The tone was perfectly kind and respectful; but Aunt Martha felt that she had been struck dumb. "I thank you from my heart," Lawrence Newt said to her. And taking her hand, he bent over it and kissed it. She sat looking at him, and at length said, "Mayn't I do any thing to show my gratitude?" "You have already done more than I deserve," replied Lawrence Newt. "I must go now. Good-by! God bless you!" She heard his quick footfalls as he descended the stairs. For a long time the sombre woman sat rocking idly to and fro, holding her work in her hand, and with her eyes fixed upon the floor. She did not seem to see clearly, whatever it might be she was looking at. She shook out her work and straightened it, and folded it regularly, and looked at it as if the secret would pop out of the proper angle if she could only find it. Then she creased it and crimped it--still she could not see. Then she took a few stitches slowly, regarding fixedly a corner of the room as if the thought she was in search of was a mouse, and might at any moment run out of his hole and over the floor. And after all the looking, she shook her head intelligently and fell quietly to work, as if the mystery were plain enough, saying to herself, "Why didn't I trust a girl's instinct who loves as Amy does? Of course she is right. Dear! dear! Of course he loves Hope Wayne." CHAPTER LV. ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE. Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions, especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the composition. "You know," he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the study as if drawing in the air, "you know it ought somehow to seem silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and midnight. You see?" Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes of the spectator.