"Like it! You're a goblin! a kelpie! a witch! an unearthly changeling! or you would never have conjured up that blood-chilling face. Why, you have been painting portraits! Did you know it?"
"I did not when I commenced—I found I had when they were done."
"And life-like portraits they are, too. That kneeling girl is Emily Murray, though her sweet face never wore that look of wild horror you have pictured there. And that other ghastly, agonized countenance, that seems rent by a thousand fiends, is—"
"Myself."
"Oh, Georgia! what spirit possessed you to paint that awful face?"
"How do I know? The spirit of prophecy, perhaps," she said, in a tone of dark gloom.
"Georgia Darrell, do you know what you deserve?"
"No, sir."
"Then I shall tell you. You ought to be locked in an attic, and fed on bread and water for a month, to cool the fever in your blood."
"Thank you; I would rather be excused. And now I come to think of it, it couldn't have been the spirit of prophecy either that inspired me, for your brother Charles once told me that I would never be drowned."