Her lovely ancestress appeared to smile,--if she could have spoken from the canvas that held her painted image she might have said:-- "You have eyes that mirror the sunshine,--you have life, and I am dead,--your day is still with you--mine is done! For me love and the world's delight are ended,--and whither my phantom fairness has fled, who knows! But you are a vital breathing essence of beauty--be glad and rejoice in it while you may!"
Some thought of this kind would have suggested itself to an imaginative beholder had such an one stood by to compare the picture with its almost twin living copy. Maryllia however had a very small stock of vanity,--she was only pleasantly aware that she possessed a certain grace and fascination not common to the ordinary of her sex, but beyond that, she rated her personal charms at very slight value. The portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa made her more seriously discontented with herself than ever,--and after closely studying the picturesque make of the violet velvet riding-dress which the fair one of Charles the Second's day had worn, and deciding that she would have one 'created' for her own adornment exactly like it, she turned towards the other end of the gallery. There hung that preciously guarded mysterious portrait of her dead mother, which she herself had never gazed upon, covered close with its dark green baize curtain,--a curtain no hand save her father's had ever dared to raise. She remembered how often he had used to enter here all alone and lock the doors, remaining thus in sorrow and solitude many hours. She recalled her own childish fears when, by chance running in to look at the pictures for her own entertainment, or to play with her ball on a rainy day for the convenience of space and a lofty ceiling, she was suddenly checked and held in awe by the sight of that great gilded frame enshrining the, to her, unknown presentment of a veiled Personality. Her father alone was familiar with the face hidden behind that covering which he had put up with his own hands,--fastening it by means of a spring pulley, which in its turn was secured to the wall by lock and key. Ever since his death Maryllia had worn that key on a gold chain hidden in her bosom, and she drew it out now with a beating heart and many tremours of hesitation. The trailing folds of her pretty tea-gown, all of the filmiest old lace and ivory-hued cashmere, seemed to make an obtrusive noise as they softly swept the floor,--she felt almost as though she were about to commit a sacrilege and break open a shrine,--yet-"I must see her!" she said, whisperingly--"I shall not offend her memory. I have never done anything very wrong in my life,--if I had, I should have reason to be afraid--or ashamed,--and then of course wouldn't dare to look at her. I have often been silly and frivolous and thoughtless,--but never spiteful or malicious, or really wicked. I could meet my father if he were here, just as frankly as if I were still a little girl,--and I think he would wish me to see his Dearest now! His Dearest! He always called her that!"