"
Wynnie had not said a word. As I turned away from the picture, I saw that
she was looking quite distressed, but whether by the picture or the freedom
with which I had remarked upon it, I do not know. My eyes falling on a
little sketch in sepia, I began to examine it, in the hope of finding
something more pleasant to say. I perceived in a moment, however, that it
was nearly the same thought, only treated in a gentler and more poetic
mode. A girl lay dying on her bed. A youth held her hand. A torrent of
summer sunshine fell through the window, and made a lake of glory upon the
floor. I turned away.
"You like that better, don't you, papa?" said Wynnie tremulously.
"It is beautiful, certainly," I answered. "And if it were only one, I
should enjoy it--as a mood. But coming after the other, it seems but the
same thing more weakly embodied."
I confess I was a little vexed; for I had got much interested in Percivale,
for his own sake as well as for my daughter's, and I had expected better
things from him.
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