paler and the more out of spirits she has become."

"O! she has sat to him, has she?"

"She is sitting to him now. He is doing a
bust of some Pagan nymph or other; and he
prevailed on Nanina to let him copy from her
head and face. According to her own account
the little fool was frightened at first, and
gave him all the trouble in the world before
she would consent."

"And now she has consented, don't you
think it likely she may turn out rather a
dangerous rival ? Men are such fools, and take
such fancies into their heads—-"

"Ridiculous! A thread-paper of a girl like
that, who has no manner, no talk, no
intelligence; who has nothing to recommend her
but an awkward babyish prettiness!—
Dangerous to me? No! no! If there is danger at
all, I have to dread it from the sculptor's
daughter. I don't mind confessing that I am
anxious to see Maddalena Lomi. But as for
Nanina, she will simply be of use to me. All
I know already about the studio and the
artists in it, I know through her. She will
deliver my message, and procure me my
introduction; and when we have got so far, I
shall give her an old gown and a shake of
the hand; and then, good-bye to our little
Innocent!"

"Well, well, for your sake I hope you are
the wiser of the two in this matter. For my
part, I always distrust innocence. Wait one
moment and I shall have the body and sleeves
of this dress ready for the needlewomen.
There, ring the bell, and order them up; for
I have directions to give, and you must
interpret for me."

While Brigida went to the bell the ener-
getic Frenchwoman began planning out the
skirt of the new dress. She laughed as she
measured off yard after yard of the silk.

"What are you laughing about? " asked
Brigida, opening the door and ringing a
hand-bell in the passage.

"I can't help fancying, dear, in spite of her
innocent face and her artless ways, that your
young friend is a hypocrite."

"And I am quite certain, love, that she is
only a simpleton."

CHAPTER II.

THE studio of the Master-Sculptor, Luca
Lomi, was composed of two large rooms,
unequally divided by a wooden partition,
with an arched doorway cut in the middle
of it.

While the milliners of the Grifoni estab-
lishment were industriously shaping dresses,
the sculptors in Luca Lomi's workshop were,
in their way, quite as hard at work shaping
marble and clay. In the smaller of the two
rooms the young nobleman (only addressed in
the studio by his Christian name of Fabio)
was busily engaged on his bust, with Nanina
sitting before him as a model His was not
one of those traditional Italian faces from
which subtlety and suspicion are always
supposed to look out darkly on the world at
large. Both countenance and expression
proclaimed his character frankly and freely to
all who saw him. Quick intelligence looked
brightly from his eyes; and easy good-humour
laughed out pleasantly in the rather quaint
curve of his lips. For the rest, his face
expressed the defects as well as the merits of
his character, showing that he wanted resolution
and perseverance just as plainly as it
showed also that he possessed amiability and
intelligence.

At the end of the large room, nearest to
the street-door, Luca Lomi was standing by
his life-size statue of Minerva, and was
issuing directions, from time to time, to some of
his workmen who were roughly chiselling the
drapery of another figure. At the opposite
side of the room, nearest to the partition, his
brother, Father Rocco, was taking a cast
from a statuette of the Madonna; while
Maddalena Lomi, the sculptor's daughter,
released from sitting for Minerva's face,
walked about the two rooms and watched
the work that was going on in them. There
was a strong family likeness of a certain kind
between father, brother, and daughter. All
three were tall, handsome, dark-haired, and
dark-eyed; nevertheless, they differed, in
expression, strikingly as they resembled one
another in feature. Maddalena Lomi's face
betrayed strong passions, but not an
ungenerous nature. Her father, with the same
indications of a violent temper, had some
sinister lines about his mouth and forehead
which suggested anything rather than an
open disposition. Father Rocco's counte-
nance, on the other hand, looked like the
personification of absolute calmness and
invincible moderation; and his manner, which,
in a very firm way, was singularly quiet and
deliberate, assisted in carrying out the
impression produced by his face. The daughter
seemed as if she could fly into a passion at
a moment's notice, and forgive also at a
moment's notice. The father, appearing to be
just as irritable, had something in his face
which said, as plainly as if in words, " Anger
me, and I never pardon." The priest looked
as if he need never be called on either to ask
forgiveness or to grant it, for the double
reason that he could irritate nobody else, and
that nobody else could irritate him.

"Rocco," said Luca, looking at the face of
his Minerva, which was now finished; "this
statue of mine will make a sensation."

"I am glad to hear it," rejoined the priest
drily.

"It is a new thing in art," continued Lucca
enthusiastically. " Other sculptors, with ' a
classical subject like mine, limit themselves
to the ideal classical face, and never think of
aiming at individual character. Now I do
precisely the reverse of that. I get my handsome
daughter, Maddalena, to sit for Minerva,
and I make an exact likeness of her. I may