One was a moonlight picture; in the background, a lowly dwelling; and in
front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of
radiance, two youthful figures, male and female. The young man stood
with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip, and a gleam of triumph in
his eye, as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl. She was almost
prostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and
anguish, which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in
supplication. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor
the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of
the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young
man. He was the personification of triumphant scorn. Now, strange to
say, as old Mr. Smith peeped through the magnifying-glass, which made the
objects start out from the canvas with magical deception, he began to
recognize the farm-house, the tree, and both the figures of the picture.
The young man, in times long past, had often met his gaze within the
looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love,--his
cottage love,--his Martha Burroughs! Mr. Smith was scandalized. "O,
vile and slanderous picture!" he exclaims. "When have I triumphed over
ruined innocence? Was not Martha wedded, in her teens, to David Tomkius,
who won her girlish love, and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? And
ever since his death, she has lived a reputable widow! "Meantime, Memory
was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling them to and fro with
uncertain fingers, until, among the earlier pages, she found one which
had reference to this picture. She reads it, close to the old
gentleman's ear; it is a record merely of sinful thought, which never was
embodied in an act; but, while Memory is reading, Conscience unveils her
face, and strikes a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith. Though not a
death-blow, the torture was extreme.