lose in ideal beauty, but I gain in individual
character. People may accuse me of disregarding
established rules— but my answer is,
that I make my own rules. My daughter
looks like a Minerva, and there she is exactly
as she looks."

"It is certainly a wonderful likeness," said
Father Rocco, approaching the statue.

"It is the girl herself," cried the other.
"Exactly her expression, and exactly her
features. Measure Maddalena, and measure
Minerva, and, from forehead to chin, you
won't find a hair's breadth of difference
between them."

"But how about the bust and arms of the
figure, now the face is done ? " asked the
priest, returning, as he spoke, to his own
work.

"I may have the very model I want for
them to-morrow. Little Nanina has just
given me the strangest message. What do
you think of a mysterious lady-admirer who
offers to sit for the bust and arms of my
Minerva?"

"Are you going to accept the offer?"
inquired the priest.

"I am going to receive her to-morrow; and
if I really find that she is the same height as
Maddalena, and has a bust and arms worth
modelling, of course I shall accept her offer;
for she will be the very sitter I have been
looking after for weeks past. Who can she
be ? That's the mystery I want to find out.
Which do you say, Rocco—an enthusiast, or
an adventuress ?"

"I do not presume to say, for I have
no means of knowing."

"Ah! there you are, with your moderation
again. Now, I do presume to assert, that
she must be either one or the other—or she
would not have forbidden Nanina to say
anything about her, in answer to all my first
natural inquiries. Where is Maddalena? I
thought she was here a minute ago."

"She is in Fabio's room," answered Father
Rocco, softly. " Shall I call her ?"

"No, no! " returned Luca. He stopped,
looked round at the workmen, who were
chipping away mechanically at their bit of
drapery; then advanced close to the priest,
with a cunning smile, and continued in a
whisper: " If Maddalena can only get from
Fabio's room here to Fabio's palace over the
way, on the Arno— come, come, Rocco! don't
shake your head. If I brought her up to
your church-door, one of these days, as
Fabio d'Ascoli's betrothed, you would be glad
enough to take the rest of the business off
my hands, and make her Fabio d'Ascoli's
wife. You are a very holy man, Rocco, but
you know the difference between the clink of
the money-bag and the clink of the chisel, for
all that!"

"I am sorry to find, Luca," returned the
priest coldly, " that you allow yourself to
talk of the most delicate subjects in the
coarsest way. This is one of the minor sins
of the tongue which is growing on you. When
we are alone in the studio I will endeavour
to lead you into speaking of the young man
in the next room and of your daughter in
terms more becoming to you, to me, and to
them. Until that time, allow me to go on
with my work."

Luca shrugged his shoulders and went
back to his statue. Father Rocco, who had
been engaged during the last ten minutes in
mixing wet plaster to the right consistency
for taking a cast, suspended his occupation,
and, crossing the room to a corner next the
partition, removed from it a cheval-glass
which stood there. He lifted it away gently,
while his brother's back was turned, carried it
close to the table at which he had been at work,
and then resumed his employment of mixing
the plaster. Having at last prepared the
composition for use, he laid it over the
exposed half of the statuette with a neatness
and dexterity which showed him to be a
practised hand at cast-taking. Just as he had
covered the necessary extent of surface, Luca
turned round from his statue.

"How are you getting on with the cast?"
he asked. " Do you want any help?"

"None, brother, I thank you," answered
the priest. "Pray do not disturb either
yourself or your workmen on my account."

Luca turned again to the statue; and, at
the same moment, Father Rocco softly moved
the cheval-glass towards the open doorway
between the two rooms, placing it at such an
angle as to make it reflect the figures of the
persons in the smaller studio. He did this
with significant quickness and precision. It
was evidently not the first time he had
used the glass for purposes of secret
observation.

Mechanically stirring the wet plaster round
and round for the second casting, the priest
looked into the glass, and saw, as in a picture,
all that was going forward in the inner
room. Maddalena Lomi was standing
behind the young nobleman, watching the
progress he made with his bust. Occasionally
she took the modelling-tool out of his hand,
and showed him, with her sweetest smile,
that she, too, as a sculptor's daughter,
understood something of the sculptor's art; and,
now and then, in the pauses of the
conversation, when her interest was especially
intense in Fabio's work, she suffered her
hand to drop absently on his shoulder, or
stooped forward so close to him that her hair
mingled for a moment with his. Moving the
glass an inch or two so as to bring Nanina
well under his eye, Father Rocco found that
he could trace each repetition of these little
acts of familiarity by the immediate effect
which they produced on the girl's face and
manner. Whenever Maddalena so much as
touched the young nobleman— no matter
whether she did so by premeditation, or really
by accident—Nanina's features contracted
her pale cheeks grew paler, she fidgetted on