The day after the theater party Miss Beresford stood alone in her beautiful studio in a sunny wing thrown out at the side of the mansion, and gazed meditatively at her latest work.

She was no mean artist, this queenly heiress, for having much talent in the beginning, she had improved upon it by spending several years in Paris under the best masters. She threw all her soul into her work, and delighted in every successful effort she made.

Her most ambitious work, and one that had occupied much time and study, was one that she called “Cupid.”

It represented the beautiful little god of love strolling through a green wood, and coming suddenly on a party of lovely youths and maidens dancing on the banks of a crystal stream.

Cupid, charmed by the pretty sight, instantly determined to make himself two victims in the merry party. The picture represented Cupid, the mischievous little god, drawing his bow to transfix a heart with a piercing arrow.

One can fancy how sweet and arch and happy Cupid must have appeared at that moment when exercising his fateful power.

The large canvas was almost finished, and the painting was spirited and striking. The best judges could have found little fault in the execution. One more touch and it would be perfect.

The unfinished part was the face of Cupid.

Alva had despaired of putting on canvas the face of Cupid as it appeared to her fancy.

Beautiful faces she could find in plenty, but the arch, radiant smile, the laughing eyes so brightly blue, these eluded her brush.

“If I could only find a living face like my ideal and put it on canvas!” she cried, eagerly, over and over to her mother, who at last became almost as anxious over the subject as Alva herself.

It was no wonder that the lady had told Floy she had looked at her as at a beautiful picture, for in the young girl’s enchanting face she had seen the realization of Alva’s dream.

And the artist, standing before her unfinished work, recalled her mother’s words of the day before, and cried out, joyously:

“I must find that lovely girl! She must be my model!”

Hastening to her mother, she exclaimed:

“You must come with me this morning to find Cupid!”

“Excuse me, Alva, but I can not go to-day. I—I am not feeling well. Besides, I have just commenced a letter to your brother.”

Alva did not ask what would be written to her brother; she could guess only too well by the thorn in her own heart.

She repressed a bursting sigh of sympathy for St. George, and said, determinedly:

“Then tell me where to find her, for I am going alone this very hour.”

“She was a young salesgirl at the handkerchief counter at Maury & Co.’s. I bought those exquisite cobweb lace handkerchiefs from her, you know.”

“Her name, mamma?”

“I did not ask it, Alva; but you cannot fail to know her, for there is no one like her. She is the loveliest salesgirl in New York, and looks like a princess.”

“Tall or short, mamma?”

“Of medium height, dear, slenderly yet exquisitely formed, with a face of rarest beauty.”

“It should be a boy’s face, mamma.”

“This one is boyish, Alva, because the sunny hair lies in soft loose rings of short hair all over the pretty head, and the roguish smile, and the dimples, the sea-shell coloring, the marvelous eyes so brightly blue, so innocent—arch—oh, I can not describe them!—go see for yourself.”

“I will; and you may expect me to bring her home with me.”

She hurried out, ordered the carriage, and within an hour was on her way to the store.

Mrs. Beresford turned back with a sigh to her task, and finished the cruel letter that was to carry such pain to her son across the sea.

When the bitter task was over she threw herself upon a low divan and wept bitterly a long, long while, almost frightened at what she had done.

She feared that she could not mold her son’s will to compliance by harshness as easily as she had done that of his timid sister.

“But he will not give up everything—he could not be so rash—for the sake of a fair-faced girl,” she told herself, with faint flickering hope.

Several hours later Alva entered the room, still in her rich carriage-dress, her face pale and grave.

“Oh, mamma, I have had a great shock,” she sighed.

“You did not find Cupid?”

“No; she had not come to the store this morning, but they told me where she boarded, and I drove there. Oh, what a terrible story I heard!”

“The girl had eloped, perhaps,” smiled the lady.

“Worse than that. I’ve often regretted that I didn’t elope myself when I was a girl,” returned Alva, flippantly; then instantly grew serious again as she continued, sadly: “The poor girl, by some strange accident, fell from her window in the fourth story down to the street last evening, and was removed to Bellevue, unconscious, and believed to be dying.”

“Oh, how sad, how shocking! and she was so sweet!” mused Mrs. Beresford, tenderly.

“So I drove to Bellevue, though expecting to find her dead,” went on Alva. “And now, mamma, comes the strangest part of the story—my Cupid had been mysteriously spirited away from the hospital.”