“I admire the genius of the young man, he will succeed in making himself known beyond all doubt. But perhaps I might offer for this picture a sum great enough to satisfy even him.”
There was a silence, and there was in the lady’s eyes such a beseeching look as she glanced from the picture toward Martin, that his determination was almost vanquished, but he looked down and said:
“The painting is my work—I cannot part with it at any price.”
“It is yours! and you will not sell it! Mr. Artist, you do not, cannot know how much you refuse us! We had a child, a darling little girl, she was an angel to us—she is lost to us, is dead, young man!—and this portrait! it is so like her, at any cost I would secure it. Name your price, high as you value your beautiful work, consider that to us it is infinitely more valuable! the hours of labor you have spent upon it have endeared it to you—it is more to us though than even that, it is life to us, for it brings her back again!”
The lady trembled as her companion pleaded with the artist so earnestly. It was not in Martin Gray to deny a plea so sad and so heartfelt. “It shall be yours,” he exclaimed, “permit me to retain the work but a few days, and it shall then be returned to you.”
A thankful glance of the tearful eyes of the bereaved mother was what Martin thought at that moment a full reward.
“God bless you, sir! you have made us happy! If five thousand dollars is any compensation, they are yours!”
That was another kind of reward! The young artist thought both invaluable; and it was with a light heart that with the picture in its case, he carried it once more to the attic studio.
——