Could I make a tiny, tiny copy of that likeness in my drawing! Would I only be so obliging as to approach for one little moment, and see if such a thing were possible?
I obeyed unwillingly enough, expecting, from mademoiselle's expression, to see a commonplace portrait of some unfortunate admirer whom she had treated with unmerited severity in the days of her youth.

To my astonishment, I found that the miniature, which was very beautifully painted, represented a woman's face--a young woman with kind, sad eyes, pale, delicate cheeks, light hair, and such a pure, tender, lovely expressions that I thought of Raphael's Madonnas the moment I looked at her portrait.
The old lady observed the impression which the miniature produced on me, and nodded her head in silence.

"What a beautiful, innocent, pure face!" I said.
Mademoiselle Clairfait gently brushed a particle of dust from the miniature with her handkerchief, and kissed it.

"I have three angels still left," she said, looking at her pupils.

"They console me for the fourth, who has gone to heaven." She patted the face on the miniature gently with her little, withered, white fingers, as if it had been a living thing.