"And now," she said, "something for the boy, with his blue eyes and rosy cheeks."
"Black eyes and olive cheeks, like thine!" cried Olaf.
The girl blushed and smiled.
"Would this please him, think you?" she asked, producing a miniature palette, on which were fastened cakes, in water colors—a cheap affair, such as, however, has gladdened many a child's heart.
"And, stay, here are brushes, likewise—a gift to the Swedish boy with my eyes and hair."
Olaf received the little gracefully-offered gift, and took leave, the young girl following his sturdy figure with her eyes as long as it was in sight.
"The saints grant that the father does not miss the picture, and beat me for as good as giving it away," she cried; "and if he does, Antonio shall paint him another. Ah, Antonio, if your eyes were but blue, and your cheeks ruddy! If you were tall, and straight, and strong, and not as black as a raven, and round-shouldered, and bow-legged! And still painted divinely!"
Olaf proceeded rapidly home, and greeted his wife in a way that procured for Carina, on the part of Eric, embraces, kisses, and asseverations not a few. But when the picture was produced, and Viola saw this bit of her native land, a strange complication of emotions she could not understand made her burst into tears. A sense of the beautiful had long lain dormant in her soul amid the stern scenes about her. Now came reminiscences of sunshine, birds and flowers, and delicious fruit; of works of art seen in the house of her master at Rome, and dimly appreciated.
"Thou wicked picture, to make the dear mother cry!" said Eric, rushing at it with a stick of wood. "I'll kill thee!"
But as his eye fell upon it, his hand dropped at his side, and a new soul illumined his face. They laughed at him, they shook him, they tried in every way to divert his rapt attention, but all in vain; he stood like a devotee before a shrine, and lost to all beside.