paper exhaled an intangible odour; it was not perfume, but a delicate scent which recalled to him, for some reason, or other, the smell of the vines around the veranda-trellis in New Orleans. He read—
"Mr. Thomas Rainsford.
"Dear Sir,—
"This will seem to be a very extraordinary letter, I know. I hardly know how to write such a letter. When I was in Paris a few weeks ago, I stood before the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have ever seen. I do not know that any one could do a more wonderful, a more deeply spiritual thing in clay or marble. But it is not what I think about it in that way, which is of interest. It cannot be of any interest to you, as you do not know me, nor is it for this that I am writing to you. Again, I do not know how to tell you.
"Where did you get your ideas for your statue? That is what I want to know. Years ago, a bas-relief, very much like yours—I should almost say identically yours—was made by my cousin, Antony Fairfax, in Albany. That bas-relief took the ten-thousand-dollar prize in Chicago. It was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire, and no record of it was kept. My cousin is dead. For this reason I write to ask you where you got your inspiration for the 'Open Door.' It can be nothing to him that his beautiful work has been more beautifully done by a stranger, can do him no harm, but I want to know. Will you write me to the care of the Women's Art League, 5th Avenue, New York? Perhaps you will not deign to answer this letter. Do not think that I am making any reproach to you. It can be nothing to my cousin; he is dead but it would be a comfort to me. Once again, I hope you will let me hear from you.
"Yours faithfully,
"Bella Carew."
The man reading in his studio looked at the signature, looked at the handwriting, held it before his eyes, to which the tears rushed. He pressed the faintly scented pages to his lips. Gallant little Bella ... He stretched
out his arms in the darkness, called to her across three thousand miles—
"Little cousin, please Heaven he can show you some day, Bella Carew."
It was at this time that he modelled his wonderful bust of Bella Carew.
When he finished the "Open Door," he said that he would not work for a year, that he was exhausted bodily and mentally; certainly he had lacked inspiration. But the afternoon of the day on which he had read this letter—this letter that opened for him a future—he set feverishly to work and modelled. He made a head of Bella which the critics have likened to the busts of Houdon, Carpeaux, and other masters. He modelled from memory, guided by his recollections of that picturesque face he had seen under the big hat on the outskirts of the crowd before his bas-relief. He modelled from memory, from imagination, with hope and new love, from old love too; told himself he had fallen in love with Bella the first night he had seen her, when she had comforted him about his heavy step.
Into the beautiful head and face he worked upon he put all his ideal of what a woman's face should be. He fell in love with his creation, in love with the clay that he moulded. Once more he had a companion in the studio from which had been removed his study for the tomb, and this represented a living woman. It seemed almost to become flesh and blood under his ardent hand. "Bella!" he called to her as he smoothed the lovely cheek and saw the peach bloom under it.
"Little cousin," he breathed, as he touched the hair along her neck, and remembered the wild, tangled forest that had fallen across his face when he carried her in his arms during their childish romps. "Honey child," he murmured as he modelled and moulded the youthful lines of the mouth and lips and stood yearning before them, all his heart and soul in his hands that made before his eyes a lovely woman. She became to him the very conception and expression of what he wanted his wife to be.