443They stood beneath the portrait, and with the image present to their minds of painter and sitter hasting on their way to be wed, saw this equivocal masterpiece with a difference. Not Aurora alone looked forth from the canvas,–throat of lily, cheek of rose, heaven-blue eyes, smile and ringlets of immitigable sunniness. Gerald, self-depicted in every subtle brush-stroke, looked, too.
“It takes sober, solid, careful people to be interesting when they commit a rashness,” thought Leslie. Then, with a little surge of envy in her well-regulated breast, “To be swept off one’s feet,” she thought, “how educative it must be, how enlarging.”
But a doubt fell, shadow-like, across her vision of future fortunes. If a person never found it possible to fall in love with those who fell in love with her, would it necessarily follow that the Some One she should someday love would regard her with coldness?
Estelle gazed upward at the portrait with a wistful, well-nigh solemn look. Not being able, hampered by a dog in her arms, to clasp her hands, she expressed the same impulse by clasping the dog close to her breast in token that her wishes for her dearest friend’s good were more than wishes, were a prayer.
She felt a hand laid lightly on her forearm.
“You needn’t be afraid,” said Leslie, “they’ll be happy.”
THE END
[Transcriber’s Note: As originally published, this book had two consecutive chapters labeled as “CHAPTER XV.” Chapter numbers have been resequenced in this text.]