s growing on you. When we
are alone in the studio, I will endeavor to lead you into speaking of
the young man in the room there, 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 practiced 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 toward 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 modeling 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 repetit