Judith Author:Grace Alexander Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Judith La Monde While Zack painstakingly prepared breakfast, Judith La Monde went down stairs again to the parlor. But at the door she paused. ... more » The room was now in a glow, for in her absence the fire had burned up brightly. The ruddy flames, glancing and leaping, made the dark rosewood piano shine, and brought out in high relief the rich carving on chairs and tables. They seemed fairly to warm into life the portrait of a woman in early maturity that hung, limned in rich, unfaded colors, in a deep oval setting of gold above the mantel-shelf. Almost they gave light to the eyes, breath to the delicate nostrils, a sentient curve to the red lips, to the bare, beautiful shoulders a living hue, to the low, round bosom, with its lace scarf fastened by a coral rose, a gentle swell. The presence of a delicately-bred and charming woman emanated from the picture and pervaded the room. Of this portrait Judith had been distinctly conscious ever since she first entered the house. But she had shrunk from viewing it. Now she looked steadily up at it. It was singularly like her, even to the low chignon, and it was fair—very fair. But a second glance only was needed to detect this difference between the painted face and the living one: the painted face was the lovelier of the two, but the living face showed a gain in fineness and in strength of feature that made it less fragilely beautiful, better to trust in. The one seemed ready for an angelic halo; the more dearly bought glory of sainthood might in years to come crown the other. Slowly, as if it drew her, Judith went toward the portrait. Then she did a strange thing. Clasping her hands together, she lifted them beseechingly and said aloud: "Must I, mother?" Her hands dropped, but she continued for some minutes to look...« less