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- very busy painting. He said to your father--'Glad to see you, cousin
Pierre; I am just about something here; sit right down there now, and
tell me the news; and I'll sally out with you presently. And tell us
something of the emigrants, cousin Pierre,' he slyly added--wishing, you
see, to get your father's thoughts running that supposed wooing way, so
that he might catch some sort of corresponding expression you see,
little Pierre."
"I don't know that I precisely understand, aunt; but go on, I am so
interested; do go on, dear aunt."
"Well, by many little cunning shifts and contrivances, cousin Ralph kept
your father there sitting, and sitting in the chair, rattling and
rattling away, and so self-forgetful too, that he never heeded that all
the while sly cousin Ralph was painting and painting just as fast as
ever he could; and only making believe laugh at your father's wit; in
short, cousin Ralph was stealing his portrait, my child."
"Not _stealing_ it, I hope," said Pierre, "that would be very wicked."
"Well, then, we won't call it stealing, since I am sure that cousin
Ralph kept your father all the time off from him, and so, could not have
possibly picked his pocket, though indeed, he slyly picked his portrait,
so to speak. And if indeed it was stealing, or any thing of that sort;
yet seeing how much comfort that portrait has been to me, Pierre, and
how much it will yet be to you, I hope; I think we must very heartily
forgive cousin Ralph, for what he then did."
"Yes, I think we must indeed," chimed in little Pierre, now eagerly
eying the very portrait in question, which hung over the mantle.
"Well, by catching your father two or three times more in that way,
cousin Ralph at last finished the painting; and when it was all framed,
and every way completed, he would have surprised your father by hanging
it boldly up in his room among his other portraits, had not your father
one morning suddenly come to him--while, indeed, the very picture itself
was placed face down on a table and cousin Ralph fixing the cord to
it--came to him, and frightened cousin Ralph by quietly saying, that now
that he thought of it, it seemed to him that cousin Ralph had been
playing tricks with him; but he hoped it was not so. 'What do you mean?'
said cousin Ralph, a little flurried. 'You have not been hanging my
portrait up here, have you, cousin Ralph?' said your father, glancing
along the walls. 'I'm glad I don't see it. It is my whim, cousin
Ralph,--and perhaps it is a very silly one,--but if you have been lately
painting my portrait, I want you to destroy it; at any rate, don't show
it to any one, keep it out of sight. What's that you have there, cousin
Ralph?'
"Cousin Ralph was now more and more fluttered; not knowing what to
make--as indeed, to this day, I don't completely myself--of your
father's strange manner. But he rallied, and said--'This, cousin Pierre,
is a secret portrait I have here; you must be aware that we
portrait-painters are sometimes called upon to paint such. I, therefore,
can not show it to you, or tell you any thing about it.'
"'Have you been painting my portrait or not, cousin Ralph?' said your
father, very suddenly and pointedly.
"'I have painted nothing that looks as you there look,' said cousin
Ralph, evasively, observing in your father's face a fierce-like
expression, which he had never seen there before. And more than that,
your father could not get from him."
"And what then?" said little Pierre.
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