d 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-by 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
needle-women. 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 energetic 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 establishment 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 humor 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 inte