Martin Gray’s fortune was made, and ever after was he a firm believer in presentiments, for the Sunrise had in very truth been the making of him. In the midst of his good fortune, the generous heart did not forget the poor child whose beauty had so materially aided his genius. Previous to his departure for the old world, he placed a well-filled purse in the hands of the mother, saying, “Your child is an extraordinary girl. This money will be sufficient to secure her a good education—pray do not neglect it, for she will be an honor and a great help to you some day. Promise me that you will keep her out of the street as much as is possible, and that you will send her to school. I am going abroad, when I come home again she will be many years older than now, nearly a woman. Give me your promise she shall be sent to school.”

“Yes, she shall go, and as to keeping her out of the street, I s’pose I might as well undertake to—Well, yes, I’ll try my hand at it.”

“Be kind to her!”

Martin traveled abroad; he studied in Italy—he studied in Germany—he journeyed through nearly all Europe. Among artists, and artist-patronizers, the success of his first exhibited picture was well-known, the Sunrise was every where commented upon, and the papers liked to talk of the young artist Martin Gray, of his skillful hand, and generous heart!

But during the years of labor and study spent abroad, his one great idea remained unaccomplished. The second picture which he had designed as a continuation of the Sunrise, was untouched. The imagination was not to be suffered to do the work in this instance either—but the second work, even as the first had been, should be a portrait.

Still his hands had not been idle. In Paris his studio (it was not there an attic!) became a point of interest and fashionable attraction, and in Hamburg the American artist dwelt neither in poverty nor obscurity. The walls of his rooms were adorned with evidences of his capabilities, and beside the honors heaped upon him, in a pecuniary point of view, his labors had made his fortune.

Years passed on, and Martin was at home again; at home and among a multitude of friends, though when seven years ago he sailed from the great city he might easily have counted the voices that came to bid adieu and God-speed. But fame and fortune wonderfully enhance the feeble interest felt in the once poor son of Genius—so Martin Gray proved it. His friendship was sought for as most honorable, his words were quoted, his dress and style imitated—fair ladies trilled his songs, (for he was something of a poet, too,) and as a “lion” the young exquisite was pronounced by fathers, mothers, and daughters, as perfect, charming, and altogether unexceptionable.

“Well, what in the way of amusements, Frank?” asked the artist, as arm-in-arm with a city gallant, he strolled along Broadway a few days after his arrival in New York.

“What! not heard yet that Alice gives a musical entertainment to-night? My good fellow you ‘argue yourself unknown’ by such unseemly ignorance,” gayly said his companion, the Hon. Francis Dundas.

“Indeed, I must confess to ignorance; who is this great singer, Alice—some newly risen star, is she not?”

“Yes—but the few who have heard, say a star that bids fair to prove on closer examination of the first magnitude, and that even an artist’s eyes can detect no defect in her matchless beauty.”

“And which point of the compass does she hail from?”

“Oh! she is a native of our city. Her rare beauty some time since attracted the attention of old H——, the millionaire—he does something toward educating her; she turns out a woman, or girl of uncommon talents, and has determined to become a public singer. I am told her history is a complete romance, wanting nothing of tragedy or comedy to make it irresistibly interesting.”

“A singer—a genius—and a beauty! we will hear her by all means!” exclaimed Martin enthusiastically.

And they did hear her.

It was not a “grand entertainment.” The singer Alice was the sole performer. She had preferred that it should be so, that her merits and powers, whatever they were, might be estimated at their worth.

Small and select was the audience before which she appeared; it was composed of people of refined taste, who could fully appreciate all the excellencies of style and manner, and whose approbation a young debutante might rejoice to win. How young she was! how truly and perfectly beautiful! There was a slight flush on her cheek which was else pale as marble, that told how strongly the chords of her brave heart were struck. She sang—oh! the voice whose tones filled the high hall was like that we hear in dreams, when angels come to keep watch over us, chanting through the long hours of the night! During the whole first part of the concert there was intense silence, for there was an intense gratification felt by the audience that was deeper than could be uttered, and the smiles, and tears, and breathless interest evinced, were to the maiden tributes more acceptable than tumultuous applause had been.

“She is a wonder!” “a miracle!” “what a voice!” “what a style!” “and then to think she is only seventeen or eighteen!” Such and like exclamations escaped from every heart as “Alice” withdrew at the close of the first part from the saloon.

Frank Dundas turned to his companion—

“Well, Gray, what do you think of her? Your wits seem wandering.”

“I am lost! it is divine! I have never seen or heard her equal. Tell me, what did you say is her name; the face haunts me; I could swear I have seen it before.”

“Tut! swear not at all. It’s not likely you have ever seen her before to-night. Perhaps she corresponds with some fairy-queen or lady-love born of your own prolific fancy. Is it not so? I can well conceive such a thing possible, though I’m neither poet nor artist.”

Martin bowed to save himself from the necessity of a reply, for he was deep in thought, and through the obscurity of the distant Past his memory was striving to grope her way.

After a few moments the singer appeared again in the saloon.

“Did you say her name is Alice?” asked Martin Gray, as his eyes for the second time rested upon her. “Alice—Alice what?”

“I have never heard—she is only known by that name. She does not need so many cognomens as we less gifted individuals, and I suppose intends that the world shall know without being told further, who is meant when the singer Alice is spoken of.”

“Dundas, I have seen that face before, you may depend upon it—will you believe it? during all my residence in Europe I have sought with desperate earnestness, but in vain, for a face just such as hers.”

“Pray wherefore? Are you not the sworn foe of all lady-loves save the sweet goddess of painting?”

“Hush! love has had nothing to do with my search—pretty faces are to be found every where; and though an artist, I am free to say the man who marries a woman for her beauty is a poor fool. Did you ever see my picture called Sunrise, painted seven or eight years ago?”

“Remember it? Why, my dear fellow, to be sure I do, and what a grand lift it gave you before the ‘darling public;’ I would be stupid indeed to forget that picture or its author. A copy of it has been the best ornament of my room for years!”

“Well, perhaps you know—though of course you could not, for I never spoke of my intention to another—but ever since that picture was finished, I have determined to make it one of a series, by painting two others, one of such innocent loveliness arrived at womanly perfection, and the third was to be the image of crime, or beauty ruined; and the three I hoped to offer a moral lesson to the world. Never till to-night have I seen one worthy to take the second place in the series. I see her now, and I have an impression that amounts almost to a conviction, that this woman is that child.”

“She lives on Tenth street. If it is your wish we will visit her to-night when the concert is finished, or to-morrow—perhaps, however, you would prefer calling upon her alone?” said Frank Dundas with a hearty co-operating look of voice and manner.

“By all means accompany me—we will go in the morning, and I will lay my life on it, that singer’s name, when a child, was Alice Flynn!”

At eleven the following morning the lady was alone in her simply furnished apartment, in a boarding-house on Tenth street. The beauty which had dazzled all who beheld her on the previous night, did not owe any thing to dress or to lamp-light, it bore the inquisitive glance of the sunshine well.

Alice received her guests, the Hon. Frank Dundas, and the artist Martin Gray, with a grace and ease of manner which delighted them. She spoke with the enthusiasm of youth of the art in which she was so great a proficient, and every word she uttered revealed a mind well cultivated, refined, and innately noble.

A half hour passed speedily by, but the Honorable gave no sign of an intention to depart. The artist, who had surveyed her as he would an exquisite production of art, first rising to take his leave, said—“I have a favor to urge, madam, it is a very great one; I am painting a series of portraits, will you permit me to take yours as a representation of Noonday?”

“It would be a very poor representative of the glory and majesty of the theme you have chosen. Pardon me, I must decline an honor so unmerited.”

“Permit me to judge that,” said Martin Gray earnestly. “It is an idea I have long desired to carry out; I wished to make the picture an exact likeness, and therefore sought a beauty that was perfect, so there should be no work left for my imagination—now that the object of my long search is found, do not deny me this great privilege. If you will only accompany some of your friends to my studio, by showing to you the Sunrise, I can better explain what it is I wish; or perhaps you will suffer me either now or to-morrow to escort you thither.”

“To-morrow,” she answered, “I will come. Ere then you may, I trust, find one elsewhere to represent your ideal.”

“That is utterly impossible. To-morrow, then, before the rooms are filled with visiters, I shall look for you,” said Martin, with a decidedly grateful accent and look, and the young men walked slowly away.

——