The day after the theater party Miss Beresford stood alone in her
beautiful studio in a sunny wing thrown out at the side of the
mansion, and gazed meditatively at her latest work.
She was no mean artist, this queenly heiress, for having much talent in
the beginning, she had improved upon it by spending several years in
Paris under the best masters. She threw all her soul into her work, and
delighted in every successful effort she made.
Her most ambitious work, and one that had occupied much time and study,
was one that she called “Cupid.”
It represented the beautiful little god of love strolling through a
green wood, and coming suddenly on a party of lovely youths and maidens
dancing on the banks of a crystal stream.
Cupid, charmed by the pretty sight, instantly determined to make
himself two victims in the merry party. The picture represented Cupid,
the mischievous little god, drawing his bow to transfix a heart with a
piercing arrow.
One can fancy how sweet and arch and happy Cupid must have appeared at
that moment when exercising his fateful power.
The large canvas was almost finished, and the painting was spirited
and striking. The best judges could have found little fault in the
execution. One more touch and it would be perfect.
The unfinished part was the face of Cupid.
Alva had despaired of putting on canvas the face of Cupid as it
appeared to her fancy.
Beautiful faces she could find in plenty, but the arch, radiant smile,
the laughing eyes so brightly blue, these eluded her brush.
“If I could only find a living face like my ideal and put it on
canvas!” she cried, eagerly, over and over to her mother, who at last
became almost as anxious over the subject as Alva herself.
It was no wonder that the lady had told Floy she had looked at her as
at a beautiful picture, for in the young girl’s enchanting face she had
seen the realization of Alva’s dream.
And the artist, standing before her unfinished work, recalled her
mother’s words of the day before, and cried out, joyously:
“I must find that lovely girl! She must be my model!”
Hastening to her mother, she exclaimed:
“You must come with me this morning to find Cupid!”
“Excuse me, Alva, but I can not go to-day. I--I am not feeling well.
Besides, I have just commenced a letter to your brother.”
Alva did not ask what would be written to her brother; she could guess
only too well by the thorn in her own heart.
She repressed a bursting sigh of sympathy for St. George, and said,
determinedly:
“Then tell me where to find her, for I am going alone this very hour.”
“She was a young salesgirl at the handkerchief counter at Maury &
Co.’s. I bought those exquisite cobweb lace handkerchiefs from her, you
know.”
“Her name, mamma?”
“I did not ask it, Alva; but you cannot fail to know her, for there is
no one like her. She is the loveliest salesgirl in New York, and looks
like a princess.”
“Tall or short, mamma?”
“Of medium height, dear, slenderly yet exquisitely formed, with a face
of rarest beauty.”
“It should be a boy’s face, mamma.”
“This one is boyish, Alva, because the sunny hair lies in soft loose
rings of short hair all over the pretty head, and the roguish smile,
and the dimples, the sea-shell coloring, the marvelous eyes so brightly
blue, so innocent--arch--oh, I can not describe them!--go see for
yourself.”
“I will; and you may expect me to bring her home with me.”
She hurried out, ordered the carriage, and within an hour was on her
way to the store.
Mrs. Beresford turned back with a sigh to her task, and finished the
cruel letter that was to carry such pain to her son across the sea.
When the bitter task was over she threw herself upon a low divan and
wept bitterly a long, long while, almost frightened at what she had
done.
She feared that she could not mold her son’s will to compliance by
harshness as easily as she had done that of his timid sister.
“But he will not give up everything--he could not be so rash--for the
sake of a fair-faced girl,” she told herself, with faint flickering
hope.
Several hours later Alva entered the room, still in her rich
carriage-dress, her face pale and grave.
“Oh, mamma, I have had a great shock,” she sighed.
“You did not find Cupid?”
“No; she had not come to the store this morning, but they told me where
she boarded, and I drove there. Oh, what a terrible story I heard!”
“The girl had eloped, perhaps,” smiled the lady.
“Worse than that. I’ve often regretted that I didn’t elope myself
when I was a girl,” returned Alva, flippantly; then instantly grew
serious again as she continued, sadly: “The poor girl, by some strange
accident, fell from her window in the fourth story down to the street
last evening, and was removed to Bellevue, unconscious, and believed to
be dying.”
“Oh, how sad, how shocking! and she was _so sweet_!” mused Mrs.
Beresford, tenderly.
“So I drove to Bellevue, though expecting to find her dead,” went on
Alva. “And now, mamma, comes the strangest part of the story--my Cupid
had been mysteriously spirited away from the hospital.”