at it, not only with admiration, but with a sense of actual comfort.
One afternoon, while resting in my favourite low chair opposite the
picture, I roused myself from a reverie, and turning to the artist,
who was showing some water-colour sketches to Mrs. Everard, I said
abruptly:

"Did you imagine that face of the Angel of Life, Signor Cellini, or
had you a model to copy from?"

He looked at me and smiled.

"It is a moderately good portrait of an existing original," he said.

"A woman's face then, I suppose? How very beautiful she must be!"

"Actual beauty is sexless," he replied, and was silent. The
expression of his face had become abstracted and dreamy, and he
turned over the sketches for Mrs. Everard with an air which showed
his thoughts to be far away from his occupation.

"And the Death Angel?" I went on. "Had you a model for that also?"

This time a look of relief, almost of gladness, passed over his
features.

"No indeed," he answered with ready frankness; "that is entirely my
own creation."

I was about to compliment him on the grandeur and force of his
poetical fancy, when he stopped me by a slight gesture of his hand.