"It would need a very good portrait to make that true of Henry," said I.
"Oh, I mean a portrait can do no harm!" she rejoined.
"Has any one ever done you any harm?" I could not help asking. But she only looked at me tranquilly and said, "I was not thinking of myself. A good portrait might correct a mistake one had made about the original of it. The artist would see without prejudice, and so his interpretation would be deeper and truer."
I replied that there might be two sides to that question. Prejudice might see more keenly, if not more broadly, than impartiality; and love, which is the height of prejudice, is not blind, as the vulgar proverb asserts: it "lends a precious seeing to the eye."
"I always supposed," she answered, "that the weak point of love was, it has no judgment. It sees faults, but it interprets them as a kind of virtues; and it counts as fully developed qualities that exist only in the germ and do not affect the character."
Now, though all this was put hypothetically, it bore internal evidence of mature consideration. My cousin had discussed the matter with herself, before discussing it with me. But whether she spoke from experience or from imagination, who can tell? It hardly seems likely that so handsome a young woman should have hitherto escaped all personal knowledge of the great passion; but, on the other hand, she may be younger than she looks; and then her life in India (I believe she was born there) may have isolated her from available society. The fact is, we know nothing more than the bare outline of the girl's previous life. It is not that she ever hesitates to answer questions; but she never volunteers information; and as there is no one but mother to interrogate her, and as mother is a poor hand at cross-examination, that amounts to nearly the same thing. The only question John will ever put to her is, Will you marry me? while, so far as I am concerned, I cannot approach her save by indirection. And it is by no means easy to surprise her into saying anything she does not intend to say.
For the last week, John has been having his gray horse, Sibyl, trained to the side-saddle, so that our cousin might go riding. Sibyl is a superb animal, with most agreeable action, but there is something tameless in her still. Yesterday morning, before breakfast, Tom had just girthed the side-saddle on her, and had gone inside to fill his pipe before mounting, leaving her attached by her halter to the stable entrance. At that moment I happened to be standing at my bedroom window, which is above my study and laboratory, in the right wing. I saw Sinfire appear, and cross the court-yard: she had on a scarlet
