"Oh," She Cried, And It Was A Cry Of Pain,
"Was I Once As Beautiful As That?" And Burst Into Tears.
She
had found the picture she had been looking for, which she had
come to see; it had been there twenty to twenty-five years,
and the story of it was as follows.
When she was a young girl her mother took her to the great
artist to have her portrait painted, and when the work was at
length finished she and her mother went to see it. The artist
put it before them and the mother looked at it, her face
expressing displeasure, and said not one word. Nor did the
artist open his lips. And at last the girl, to break the
uncomfortable silence, said, "Where shall we hang it, mother?"
and the lady replied, "Just where you like, my dear, so long
as you hang it with the face to the wall." It was an
insolent, a cruel thing to say, but the artist did not answer
her bitterly; he said gently that she need not take the
portrait as it failed to please her, and that in any case he
would decline to take the money she had agreed to pay him for
the work. She thanked him coldly and went her way, and he
never saw her again. And now Time, the humbler of proud
beautiful women, had given him his revenge: the portrait,
scorned and rejected when the colour and sparkle of life was
in the face, had been looked on once more by its subject and
had caused her to weep at the change in herself.
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