frightful a look may be. But it was all fancy. I thought nothing of it
at the time,--I have seen nothing of it since,--I did but dream it."

And she busied herself about the embroidery of a ruff, in which she meant
that her portrait should be taken.

The painter, of whom they had been speaking, was not one of those native
artists, who, at a later period than this, borrowed their colors from the
Indians, and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts.
Perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and prearranged his destiny,
he might have chosen to belong to that school without a master, in the
hope of being at least original, since there were no works of art to
imitate, nor rules to follow. But he had been born and educated in
Europe. People said, that he had studied the grandeur or beauty of
conception, and every touch of the master hand, in all the most famous
pictures, in cabinets and galleries, and on the walls of churches, till
there was nothing more for his powerful mind to learn.

Art could add nothing to its lessons, but Nature might. He had therefore
visited a world, whither none of his professional brethren had preceded
him, to feast his eyes on visible images, that were noble and
picturesque, yet had never been transferred to canvas. America was too
poor to afford other temptations to an artist of eminence, though many of
the colonial gentry, on the painter's arrival, had expressed a wish to
transmit their lineaments to posterity, by means of his skill. Whenever
such proposals were made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant,
and seemed to look him through and through. If he beheld only a sleek
and comfortable visage, though there were a gold-laced coat to adorn the
picture, and golden guineas to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task
and the reward. But if the face were the index of anything uncommon, in