Mademoiselle Virginie coldly, turning away
to the table and taking up the scissors again.

Brigida followed her, threw one arm
roughly round her neck, and kissed her on
the cheek. "Let us be friends again," she
said. The Frenchwoman laughed. " Tell me
how I have had my revenge," pursued the
other, tightening her grasp. Mademoiselle
Virginie signed to Brigida to stoop, and
whispered rapidly in her ear. The Italian
listened eagerly with fierce suspicious eyes
fixed on the door. When the whispering
ceased, she loosened her hold; and, with a
sigh of relief, pushed back her heavy black
hair from her temples. " Now we are friends,"
she said, and sat down indolently in a chair
placed by the work-table.

"Friends," repeated Mademoiselle Virginie,
with another laugh. "And now for
business," she continued, getting a row of pins
ready for use by putting, them between
her teeth. " I am here, I believe, for the
purpose of ruining the late forewoman, who
has set up in opposition to us ! Good! I
will ruin her. Spread out the yellow
brocaded silk, my dear, and pin that pattern on at
your end, while I pin at mine. And what
are your plans, Brigida? (Mind you don't
forget that Finette is dead, and that Virginie
has risen from her ashes.) You can't possibly
intend to stop here all your life ? (Leave an
inch outside the paper, all round.) You must
have projects ? What are they?"

"Look at my figure," said Brigida, placing
herself in an attitude in the middle of the
room.

"Ah!" rejoined the other, "it's not what
it was. There's too much of it. You want
diet, walking, and a French staymaker,"
muttered Mademoiselle Virginie through her
chevaux-de-frise of pins.

"Did the goddess Minerva walk } and
employ a French staymaker? I thought she
rode upon clouds, and lived at a period before
waists were invented."

"What do you mean?"

"This—that my present project is to try if
I can't make my fortune by sitting as a model
for Minerva in the studio of the best sculptor
in Pisa."

"And who is he? (Unwind me a yard or
two of that black lace.)"

"The master sculptor, Luca Lomi,—an old
family, once noble, but down in the world
now. The master is obliged to make statues
to get a living for his daughter and himself."

"More of the lace—double it over the
bosom of the dress. And how is sitting to
this needy sculptor to make your fortune?"

"Wait a minute. There are other
sculptors besides him in the studio. There is,
first, his brother, the priest—Father Rocco,
who passes all his spare time with the master.
He is a good sculptor in his way—has cast
statues and made a font for his church— a
holy man, who devotes all his work in the
studio to the cause of .piety."

"Ah, bah! we should think him a droll
priest in France. (More pins.) You don't
expect him to put money in your pocket
surely?"

"Wait; I say again. There is a third
sculptor in the studio—actually a nobleman!
His name is Fabio d'Ascoli. He is rich,
young, handsome, an only child, and little
better than a fool. Fancy his working at sculpture,
as if he had his bread to get by it—and
thinking that an amusement! Imagine a
man belonging to one of the best families in
Pisa mad enough to want to make a
reputation as an artist!—Wait! wait! the best is
to come. His father and mother are dead—
he has no near relations in the world to
exercise authority over him—he is a bachelor,
and his fortune is all at his own disposal;
going a-begging, my friend; absolutely going
a-begging for want of a clever woman to hold
out her hand and take it from him."

"Yes, yes— now I understand. The
goddess Minerva is a clever woman, and she will
hold out her hand and take his fortune from
him with the utmost docility."

"The first thing is to get him to offer it.
I must tell you that I am not going to sit to
him, but to his master, Luca Lomi, who is
doing the statue of Minerva. The face is
modelled from his daughter; and now he
wants somebody to sit for the bust and arms.
Maddalena Lomi and I are as nearly as possible
the same height, I hear,—the difference
between us being that I have a good figure and
she has a bad one. I have offered to sit,
through a friend who is employed in the
studio. If the master accepts, I am sure of
an introduction to our rich young gentleman;
and then leave it to my good looks, my various
accomplishments, and my ready tongue, to do
the rest."

"Stop! I won't have the lace doubled, on
second thoughts. I'll have it single, and
running all round the dress in curves- so.
Well, and who is this friend of yours
employed in the studio ? A fourth sculptor?"

"No! no! the strangest, simplest little
creature—- "

Just then a faint tap was audible at the
door of the room.

Brigida laid her finger on her lips, and
called impatiently to the person outside to
come in.

The door opened gently, and a young girl,
poorly but very neatly dressed, entered the
room. She was rather thin, and under the
average height; but her head and figure
were in perfect proportion. Her hair was of
that gorgeous auburn colour, her eyes of that
deep violet blue, which the portraits of
Giorgione and Titian have made famous as the type
of Venetian beauty. Her features possessed
the definiteness and regularity, the " good
modelling" (to use an artist's term), which is
the rarest of all womanly charms, in Italy as
elsewhere. The one serious defect of her face
was its paleness. Her cheeks, wanting