There, in a regal frame, in a painting by the famous hand of Prince Fillipo Colonna, master of arts in the Royal Academy at Rome, appeared two full-sized figures. They were those of David Morning and Señorita Gonzales. It was an interior of an adobe house. The saints upon the mud walls, with rosaries suspended beneath them, and the crude decorations about the fireplace, with the hammocks in the shadow were dimly visible. Light came in through a low window, and fell upon the white face of Morning, just tinged with returning health. One hand held suspended a pencil, while with the other, just discernible from out the shadows, he clasped the girlish figure of Murella Gonzales. It was a master work of art, and more than condoned all malicious or vain intent on the part of the author. The expression upon Morning’s face was one of placid amusement, while that upon the girl’s was anxious and arch, questioning and trusting, open, yet elusive, like the mimosa growing sturdily from the potted earth in the rude casement, which receded at a sound of the human voice. The noble artist had evidently caught an inspiration from the local color—filtrated through the hot brain of the lovely señorita—and had touched the face of Morning with the light of his lovely companion. Mr. Morning had just crossed over to catch a word with the baroness when the tableau was unveiled. Her whitening face frightened him, and he looked quickly over her shoulder at the picture. At the same moment a piercing shriek, and Señorita Murella rushed wildly down the room. “_Madre de Dios!_” she yelled. “What a you do that a for?” and she menaced the poor Spaniard with her small fist. “It was I, it was I,” pleaded Mrs. Thornton. “Don’t blame him.” But Murella turned from her with high scorn. “Fool, I will kill a him,” she shrieked, again turning to the place where the man had stood. But Señor Don Manuel Jose Maria Ignacio Cervantes Alvarado, knowing something of the temper of his niece, had attended not upon the order of his going, but slipped away, and in his place stood Morning. For one brief moment Murella looked at him, then, drawing a pearl-handled stiletto from beneath her girdle, she gashed and stabbed the unconscious canvas in twice a dozen places, crying all the time, “Take a that, and a that, and a that!” Morning thought that his time had come, but he manfully stood his ground, secretly smiling at the bloodless assassination, until, exhausted, Murella fell upon the carpet in a genuine hysterical rage. After a moment he lifted her to her feet, placed her hand within his arm, and led her unresistingly from the room. An hour later she stood at the boathouse, leaning upon the arm of Prince Fillipo, and gayly waving an adieu to the party, Morning among them; then, with the artist’s arm about her waist, they slowly returned up the terrace steps, while the decorated steamer went out of sight around the cove.