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 color, 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 modeling" (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 nothing in form, wanted
everything in color. That look of health, which is the essential
crowning-point of beauty, was the one attraction which her face did not
possess.

She came into the room with a sad and weary expression in her
eyes, which changed, however, the moment she observed the
magnificently-dressed French forewoman, into a look of astonishment,
and almost of awe. Her manner became shy and embarrassed; and after an
instant of hesitation, she turned back silently to the door.

"Stop, stop, Nanina," said Brigida, in Italian. "Don't be afraid of that
lady. She is our new forewoman; and she has it in her power to do all
sorts of kind things for you. Look up, and tell us what you want You
were sixteen last birthday, Nanina, and you behave like a baby of two
years old!"

"I only came to know if there was any work for me to-day," said the
girl, in a very sweet voice, that trembled a little as she tried to face
the fashionable French forewoman again.

"No work, child, that is easy enough for you to do," said Brigida. "Are
you going to the studio to-day?"

Some of the color that Nanina's cheeks wanted began to steal over them
as she answered "Yes."

"Don't forget my message, darling. And if