she do with herself? Should she give up her frantic ambition, her intense desire after excitement, riches, and splendor, and, accepting an honest man, settle in a simple, comfortable home, and grace it as a good wife and mother all her days? Could she do that?
Should she refuse Earle Moray, on whose lips an offer of himself and his all was trembling? Should she send him away? She scarcely felt ready for that. She had grown to love him a little – just a little – but more than any one – except herself. Should she fly this homely, quiet life, these good, uncongenial people, fly to the great city, and set out under a feigned name to make her own way in the world, as singer, actress – any wild, adventurous path that might find her at least a lord for a husband? Should she?
"Can I give him up? Can I leave him to Mattie? Will he ever be famous and rich enough to make it worth while to nourish my little bit of love for him into real love, if I can ever love? Oh, for some good fairy to rise up and tell me what to do!"
She started in sudden fear, for surely a step was coming close to her, some one from the other side of the coppice, who had watched her unseen. Not a fairy. A gentleman. A very presentable gentleman, who said:
"I beg pardon. Do not let me alarm you."
Then the two looked at each other.
Doris saw a handsome, middle-aged man, palette on his thumb, box of paints under his arm, portable easel in his hand; wide-awake hat, velveteen suit. She promptly summed him up – "artist."
He saw – Doris; Doris, mold of beauty; naiad in grace; innocence in her startled eyes; face of an angel; mien of a wood nymph. He began to believe in the gods of old. He said to himself, "Maid or spirit? Mortal or vision?"
"Forgive me for startling you," he said; "but I have been watching you as you stood under this tree – "
"I hate to be watched," interrupted Doris.
"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still life. For years I have had an ideal of a face that I wished to paint in my best mood: a face after which all should wonder. I have searched cities and country; I have wandered in my quest for that face through other lands; and when I saw you under the tree, I was all the artist – all lost in art – for yours is the face I have been seeking for my canvas."
"Why, do you mean I would make a picture – a real picture?" demanded Doris, with studied simplicity.
"Yes; ten thousand times yes! Under this greenwood tree, your basket at your feet, your hat swinging in your hand, your eyes lifted – yes, a picture to be known and praised forever. Child, I will make your beauty immortal."
This was what she had dreamed.
A poet was singing her praises, and would do so, whether she played him false or not; and here was an artist to paint her for a world to admire.
Could she who so inspired men tie herself to the narrow bounds of one humble, rustic hearth? Never!
"May I paint you?" demanded the artist. "May I set you in canvas, in immortal youth and loveliness, to live years, perhaps centuries hence, in deathless beauty?"
"The picture – the face – will live! Where, in those far off ages, shall I be?" asked Doris, earnestly.
Gregory Leslie thought the word and mood strange.
"The best part of you is immortal," he said, gently.
"And what would you call my picture?"
"'Innocence.' Yes, 'Innocence' should be its name!"
"But what in me seems to you the image of 'Innocence?'"
Stranger question still. But he answered as an artist:
"You have an ideal brow, rounded at the temples as the old masters painted their angels. Your eyes are large, bright, clear, as seeing more of heaven than earth. Your lips have the most exquisite curve. The form of your face, its coloring, your hair, are all simply perfect!"
"You shall paint my picture!" cried Doris, joyously, changing her mood. "You need ask no consent but mine!"
CHAPTER XIII
"FAITHLESS AND DEBONAIR."
"Doris, you must not do it. I cannot bear it!"
"I don't see what difference it makes to you, Earle, and you have no right to interfere, and do it I surely shall."
Thus Doris and Earle on the theme of portrait painting.
Gregory Leslie was too astute a man, too experienced, to take his wandering naiad at her word, and paint her picture, asking no consent but her own. Never had a girl so puzzled him. Her rare beauty, found in so remote and rural a district; her delicate hands, soft, cultured tones, exquisite, high-bred grace, in contrast with her very common, simple, if tasteful, dress: and then her words, so odd – either purest innocence and simplicity, or curious art in wickedness. Who and what was the young enchantress? Then, too, her smile, the turn of her neck, her way evoked constantly some shadowy reminiscence, some picture set far back and grown dim in the gallery of his memory, but surely there. Again and again he strove to catch the fleeing likeness, but at once, with the effort, it was gone.
"If you want to paint me, begin!" said Doris, child-like.
"Pardon. It would inconvenience you to stand here; the sketch even would take time. It must be a work of care. I shall do better if I have your permission to accompany you home. Also I must ask your parents' consent."
"They don't mind!" cried Doris, petulantly, after some little hesitation. "I am only a farmer's daughter." She flushed with bitter vexation at the thought, but seeing the artist immovable in his purpose, added: "I live at Brackenside, it is not far; you can easily come there."
"If you will permit," said Gregory, with courtesy.
"You can come. I have no objection," said Doris, with the air of a princess.
She picked up her basket, and moved away with the grace, the proud bearing of "the daughter of a hundred earls."
Gregory Leslie marveled more and more. As an artist, he was enraptured; as a man, he was puzzled by this new Daphne.
Doris, seemingly forgetting her new cavalier, yet taking a rapid side look at him, considered that he was very handsome, if getting a little gray; also, that his air was that of a man of the world, a dash of the picturesque added to the culture of cities.
She wished Earle would meet them, and go into a spasm of jealousy. But Earle was spared that experience, and only Mark, Patty, and Mattie Brace were at the farm-house, to be dazzled with the beauty's conquest.
Arrived at the gate, Doris turned with proud humility to her escort.
"This is my home. I do not like it. Most people think the place pretty."
"It is a paradise!" said Leslie, enthusiastically.
"Then it must have a serpent in it," quoth Doris.
"I hope not," said Leslie.
"It has. I have felt it bite!"
Mark Brace, with
