"Mr. Abraham thinks you'd better look in and see if it's well to have any watchers in there, before you go," she said.
"Well, light me in, then, Katie. You wait in there, if you please, Miss," to me; and I saw the two go to the front-room on the right.
A waft of something, it may have been the air that came out of that room, sent me back from the hall, and I shut the door behind me. It was several minutes before they came back. In the interim I had taken a long look at the face on the wall. It seemed too young to be very beautiful, and I couldn't help wishing that the artist had waited a year or two, until a little more of the outline of life had come to it; yet it was a sweet, loving face, with a brow as low and cool as Sophie's own, only it hadn't any shadow of an Aaron on it. I didn't hear the door open, I hadn't heard the sound of living thing, when some one said, close to me, as I was standing looking up at the face I've spoken of,--
"What are you doing?"
It was Mr. Axtell, and the voice was a prickly one.
"Is there any harm?" I said. "I'm only looking here,"--pointing to where my eyes had been before. "Who painted it?"
"An unknown, poor painter."
"Was he poor in spirit?"
"He is now, I trust."
A man that has variant voices is a cruel thing in this world, because one cannot help their coming in at some one of the gates of the heart, which cannot all be guarded at the same moment. "Poor in spirit?" "He is now, I trust." I felt decidedly vexed at this man before me for having such tones in his voice.