“Well, perhaps you know—though of course you could not, for I never spoke of my intention to another—but ever since that picture was finished, I have determined to make it one of a series, by painting two others, one of such innocent loveliness arrived at womanly perfection, and the third was to be the image of crime, or beauty ruined; and the three I hoped to offer a moral lesson to the world. Never till to-night have I seen one worthy to take the second place in the series. I see her now, and I have an impression that amounts almost to a conviction, that this woman is that child.”
“She lives on Tenth street. If it is your wish we will visit her to-night when the concert is finished, or to-morrow—perhaps, however, you would prefer calling upon her alone?” said Frank Dundas with a hearty co-operating look of voice and manner.
“By all means accompany me—we will go in the morning, and I will lay my life on it, that singer’s name, when a child, was Alice Flynn!”
At eleven the following morning the lady was alone in her simply furnished apartment, in a boarding-house on Tenth street. The beauty which had dazzled all who beheld her on the previous night, did not owe any thing to dress or to lamp-light, it bore the inquisitive glance of the sunshine well.
Alice received her guests, the Hon. Frank Dundas, and the artist Martin Gray, with a grace and ease of manner which delighted them. She spoke with the enthusiasm of youth of the art in which she was so great a proficient, and every word she uttered revealed a mind well cultivated, refined, and innately noble.
A half hour passed speedily by, but the Honorable gave no sign of an intention to depart. The artist, who had surveyed her as he would an exquisite production of art, first rising to take his leave, said—“I have a favor to urge, madam, it is a very great one; I am painting a series of portraits, will you permit me to take yours as a representation of Noonday?”
“It would be a very poor representative of the glory and majesty of the theme you have chosen. Pardon me, I must decline an honor so unmerited.”
“Permit me to judge that,” said Martin Gray earnestly. “It is an idea I have long desired to carry out; I wished to make the picture an exact likeness, and therefore sought a beauty that was perfect, so there should be no work left for my imagination—now that the object of my long search is found, do not deny me this great privilege. If you will only accompany some of your friends to my studio, by showing to you the Sunrise, I can better explain what it is I wish; or perhaps you will suffer me either now or to-morrow to escort you thither.”
“To-morrow,” she answered, “I will come. Ere then you may, I trust, find one elsewhere to represent your ideal.”