WORLD OF FASHION.
THE UNKNOWN PORTRAIT .
BY MRS . M. V. SPENCER.
CHAPTER I.
"How beautiful !" involuntarily exclaimed Edward Moreton, as he paused by a portrait at the annual exhibition of the——
It was the portrait of a young and beautiful girl, painted in a style that was worthy of the old masters. She could not have been more than eighteen, for her face still wore that expression of sunny girlish happiness, which a few years' contact with the world changes into a more sedate, but not perhaps less lovely expression. The artist had handled his subject admirably, so that, at first, the eye saw only the face of the young girl, although on a closer scrutiny you noticed that she held a rose to her bosom, and that the drapery, hands and other minutiæ of the picture were delineated with surpassing skill. But it was the face, after all, which riveted the attention . Beautiful indeed was that countenance- beautiful as a dream of heaven. The eyes were large and dark, and shone on you from the depths of her pure soul with an expression of the most winning softness. The hair was of the darkest brown, modestly curtained on either side of the face, and apparently gathered up behind into a Grecian knot. The forehead was smooth and polished like marble, and the chin and throat as delicately chiselled as if a Canova had modelled them. The whole character of the face was that of loveliness in its most winning form. Moreton stood, for a minute entranced, drinking in the beauty of that angelic face. At length he turned to the catalogue, eager to see to whom the portrait belonged. The artist's name was a new one, but the picture was for sale. Again Moreton turned to the portrait, and gazed on that bewitching face. Strange emotions took possession of his soul as he looked. Was he in love, and with a portrait ? Whatever was the character of his feelings, an ungovernable curiosity to learn who the original might be took possession of him, and he determined to see the artist, and learn something of this beautiful unknown. But when he applied to the door-keeper to ascertain the artist's residence, he was informed that the painter had gone to Europe since the completion of the portrait, and that no one could tell who had been the original.
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the portrait was an ideal or a real one, he soon agreed for the price. "The picture will be sent home," said the doorkeeper, " as soon as the exhibition closes. I congratulate you on having become the owner of the finest piece this year on the walls." It was strange what an ungovernable passion for that picture took possession of Moreton ! Daily he visited the exhibition and spent hours before the portrait, gazing on it as a worshipper gazes on the face of a saint. To his eye, indeed, that countenance was the impersonation of all loveliness, and he never tired of looking on the smooth pearly cheek, on the white and classic forehead, on the bold sweep of the pencilled brows, and on those dark deep eyes so full of all the finest and holiest susceptibilities of woman. Awake or in his dreams that face was before him. Often, when far away, he would shut his eyes to call up to his imagination more forcibly that glorious countenance ; and then would he dream , in many a wild reverie, of the possibility of meeting, at some | future day, the living counterpart to this face. And when, at length, the picture came home, he would sit for hours, all unconscious of what was going on around him, gazing on the portrait. He seemed to live for nothing else. In that picture he saw expressed the ideal beauty for which he had thirsted from a boy ; and he secretly determined that he would discover the original, if indeed one there was, or die worshipping a shadow. But all his efforts were unavailing. The artist had died soon after reaching Europe, and the letter of enquiry which Moreton had sent was returned unopened. No one of his acquaintance had ever seen a face bearing the slightest resemblance to the portrait. Moreton's friends, at length, began to regard him as suffering under a monomania on this point, and his persevering enquiries met thereafter only a pitying shake of the head or a contemptuous laugh.
CHAPTER 11.
In one of our eastern cities, on a cold and snowy winter night, a little group might have been seen gathered around the flickering embers of a fire, in a crazy tenement on the outskirts of the town. A somewhat aged lady, and a boy about ten years old, sat in front of the chimney-place. The third individual was a young girl, who might have numbered twenty years. She sat on a low stool, on one side of the fire, holding a piece " There has been a general enquiry," said the door- of needle-work close to the dying embers, as if she was keeper, "but no one knows. The artist was always a endeavoring to sew by their feeble light. The face of reserved man, and lived in New York. He took great that young girl was one of extraordinary beauty. The care with this picture : I rather think it's altogether an eyes were dark and full ; the brow had the whiteness idcal face." of Parian marble ; and the thick brown tresses were Disappointed in his enquiries, Moreton was about modestly curtained down either side of her face and turning away when he recollected that the picture was gathered up in a knot behind. Her attire, though clean for sale, and resolving to possess himself of it, whether and neat, was of the coarsest character, as were also the VOL. II.-4
