Atalanta in the South. Maud Howe Elliott

were behind it!

      "I am only unveiling the face of the salt-spirit," she had said a dozen times when her father and the cutter of stone had warned her that she was working too hastily in the brittle material. She had understood instinctively the soft, friable, salt crystal, and had used her chisel with more dexterity than her colleague, hampered by the traditions of his trade.

      "None but a novice would have attempted it," said the workman admiringly. "A novice and a woman! Only novices and women achieve the impossible."

      "And genius, Antonio," added the General sententiously, claiming for his daughter the supreme of gifts. Stuart Ruysdale was a modest man as far as he himself was concerned; but ​his vanity in regard to his child was unbounded. The most unassuming people often make the vainest parents.

      A group of moving lights appeared at the end of the gallery. Margaret supposed they were carried by a party of miners, and paid no heed to their approach. The lights halted at the foot of the scaffolding, and still she went on retouching the features with a loving care. There was a pause, then a shout of greeting fell upon her ear. She started; and being perilously near the edge of the planking, gave a little cry of fright before she could answer the salutation. When she learned that her friends had come to visit her, she made her way down the ladder. Philip was the first to take her hand.

      "How could you deceive me so?" he asked.

      "I did n't; I only let you be deceived."

      "Beshrew you for an evil-disposed little thing. I wonder you dared come down at all. Do you call this the part of friendship?" cried Mrs. Harden.

      "Forgive me, all of you! I did want to keep my secret to myself, and you have got the better of me, after all; so be magnanimous."

      "It will depend upon how we like your Lot's wife. It's that, of course, you have been digging out of the wall?" rejoined Mrs. Harden, laughing.

      ​"You shall see," answered Margaret. "They have come to take away the supports, and you shall guess what the subject is."

      When the obscuring planks were removed, a strong light was cast upon the roof of the mine, which was vaulted, like the aisle of a Norman church. Vast pillars hewn out of the quartz, spanned by round arches, supported the roof; and near one of these massive columns Margaret had carved the likeness of the salt-sprite. The face on which the brilliant flickering light now fell was set about with glittering salt-crystals, which shone like so many mammoth diamonds. It was a melancholy face, full of startled surprise. From the darkness of the mine it glimmered forth, pale, reproachful, ghostly.

      "How beautiful, but how uncanny! Where did you ever see such a face, child?" said Mrs. Harden, breaking the silence.

      "Here in the mine."

      "It is a great success," said the master of the mine, "and I congratulate myself on the possession of so remarkable a work of art. My only regret is that it exists in so perishable a material."

      Each one had his or her word to say of praise and gratulation. General Ruysdale, pleased and proud, walked about, viewing the sculptured head from every point, "positively chortling ​with happiness," as Mrs. Harden said; but Margaret soon slipped away from her friends and admirers. Philip followed, and found her sitting near the shaft, in the twilight region, where the darkness of the mine and the glad light of day were struggling for the upper hand.

      "Are you not satisfied?" he asked, quick to see her trouble.

      "No, and it hurts me to have you all praise it when I know how much better I could have made it. It seems as if you expected nothing more of me, and were surprised that I have done even as well as this."

      "Dear friend, believe me, that feeling is one that you will always have, no matter at what point you may arrive in your art. You have in your own mind the spirit of the conception, and, do what you will, you can only show us its reflection. When self-satisfaction comes, progress stops. May you never know it."

      "It makes me ashamed to have them praise me," Margaret repeated. And Philip laughed, and told her that this was as it should be.