Life — December 26, 1895 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘LIFE: TWO PORTRAITS. AN I I N the old-fashioned library of an old-fashioned house a young man, near an open window, sat writing at a desk. His sunburnt face seemed all the browner from its contrast with the light, almost straw-colored hair, which showed a resolute tendency to point in its own directions. He folded his letter, sealed and directed the envelope and affixed a stamp; then he leaned back with a look of relief. Although a good son, this letter to his mother had been an unwelcome effort, as the present visit to his grandfather was absolutely without incident ; and besides, she knew more of the house, the neighbors and the old gentleman himself than any other person could ever tell her. Nevertheless, he had covered four pages, and felt now like receiving his reward; like doing something foolish, something to be ashamed of later. He could go to the vil lage, but it offered no dissipa- tions beyond tepid beer and bad cigars, and for these he felt no yearnings. For a young man just out of college the world has little to teach, and as he thought of the gouty grandfather in the chamber above, and realized that this visit was to continue four days longer, he began to regret that creation, in its final results, should prove so flat and uneventful. Again, for the twentieth time, he looked across the library to the portrait of a girl in an old- fashioned hat, who seemed forever on the point of smiling, yet never did it, She, whoever she s, with her black hair and tranquil eyes, had a gentle, somewhat sad expression, and yet there was a suggestion of mischief about the mouth. And the smile seemed so very near that he disliked to turn away for fear of missing it. He not only smiled himself, as he had often done before, as a form of en- couragement, but this time he leaned forward and addressed her: "Please do it. Just once! ERNATIONAL “Tne Portrait or a Girt in AN OLD-yAsHioNED MYSTERY. But the prayer was not answered. He looked out the window with the melancholy gaze of a disappointed lover ; then a foolish look came over his face ; the look of a foolish man with a foolish idea who has resolved upon a foolish thing. He took half a sheet of note paper and raised his pen to write. What he wrote seemed to come with an effort: ‘* If there is, in this world,a girl like you Then count me a lover, staunch and true.” Looking over at the portrait, he said in a very low tone and with an apologetic air: “am nota poet, you know, but the sentiment is correct.” Folding it twice, until it be- came quite a narrow strip, he stepped over to the silent girl and pushed his message be- tween the canvas and the frame. This brought relief. The foolish thing was done. Perhaps it was more foolish than the con- ditions required, but without defining it he felt that in matters of love no barriers are more chilling than caution and common sense. “ And besides,” he muttered, as his gaze rested affectionately upon the eyes that seemed so very near a smile, “it is no one’s business but our own, and I know you will never tell.” He stepped back and gravely threw a kiss to the face above him, then politely, and with be- coming deference, retreated to- ward the door. As he ascended the stairs he made a bold resolve. He would ask the old gentleman, point blank, who the painting repre- sented. It would be a natural question. Yet, on the other hand, he knew his grandfather never alluded to it, and he also knew, from the housekeeper, that the portrait never appeared in the house until after his grandmother's death; and ever since it has held the place of honor in the library. Between the two men as they Har." sat facing each other the