“Oh!” she cried, in an ecstasy; and Alva smiled, well pleased.
“You see it is not yet completed,” she explained. “See there the figure of Cupid, with his bow and arrow. When I have given him your enchanting face, it will be finished; and I am so impatient to begin that I will commence painting this very morning!”
CHAPTER XXXI.
NEAR TO DEATH.
Alva painted unweariedly for several hours, and declared herself charmed with her lovely, patient model.
Floy was enthusiastic, too. She declared that she could not be grateful enough to Miss Beresford for putting her face in that enchanting picture.
“Only think!” she cried. “When I am dead and gone—when the light has faded from my eyes—when this form of mine is dust in a forgotten grave—this beauty will live on upon the deathless canvas, and some one may say of me: ‘She was so pretty, this little Floy Fane, that Miss Beresford made her face immortal by painting it as Cupid.’”
Alva saw that the girl’s delight was genuine, and it charmed her very much.
“I shall put you in other pictures, too,” she said. “Last night, after I left you, the thought came to me to paint your portrait in a simple white gown, and call it ‘Maidenhood.’ Do you like the idea?”
“I am charmed!” cried Floy.