od likeness (although it did assume to represent
a classical subject) of his dead daughter that he possessed. He had
refused to part with it for Maddalena's sake; and, as he now approached
it with his brush for the second time, he absently ceased speaking, and
mounted on a stool to look at the face near and blow some specks of dust
off the forehead. Nanina thought this a good opportunity of escaping
from further importunities. She was on the point of slipping away to the
door with a word of farewell, when a sudden exclamation from Luca Lomi
arrested her.

"Plaster!" cried the master-sculptor, looking intently at that part of
the hair of the statue which lay lowest on the forehead. "Plaster here!"
He took out his penknife as he spoke, and removed a tiny morsel of some
white substance from an interstice between two folds of the hair
where it touched the face. "It _is_ plaster!" he exclaimed, excitedly.
"Somebody has been taking a cast from the face of my statue!"

He jumped off the stool, and looked all round the studio with an
expression of suspicious inquiry. "I must have this cleared up," he
said. "My statues were left under Rocco's care, and he is answerable
if there has been any stealing of casts from any one of them. I must
question him directly."

Nanina, seeing that he took no notice of her, felt that she might now
easily effect her retreat. She opened the studio door, and repeated,
for the twentieth time at least, that she was sorry she could not sit to
him.

"I am sorry too, child," he said, irritably looking about for his hat.
He found it apparently just as Nanina was going out; for she heard him
call to one of the workmen in the inner studio, and order the man to
say, if anybody wanted him, that he had gone to Father Rocco's lodgings.

CHAPTER VI.

The next morning, when Nanina rose, a bad attack of headache, and
a sense of languor and depression, reminded her of the necessity of
following the doctor's advice, and preserving her health by getting
a little fresh air and exercise. She had more than two hours to spare
before the usual time when her daily attendance began at the Ascoli
Palace; and she determined to employ the interval of leisure in taking a
morning walk outside the town. La Biondella would have been glad enough
to go too, but she had a large order for dinner-mats on hand, and was
obliged, for that day, to stop in the house and work. Thus it happened
that when Nanina set forth from home,