t kind, nor like yourself," said Hilda gently, "to throw
ridicule on emotions which are genuine. I revere this glorious church
for itself and its purposes; and love it, moreover, because here I have
found sweet peace, after' a great anguish."

"Forgive me," answered the sculptor, "and I will do so no more. My heart
is not so irreverent as my words."

They went through the piazza of St. Peter's and the adjacent streets,
silently at first; but, before reaching the bridge of St. Angelo,
Hilda's flow of spirits began to bubble forth, like the gush of a
streamlet that has been shut up by frost, or by a heavy stone over its
source. Kenyon had never found her so delightful as now; so softened
out of the chillness of her virgin pride; so full of fresh thoughts,
at which he was often moved to smile, although, on turning them over
a little more, he sometimes discovered that they looked fanciful only
because so absolutely true.

But, indeed, she was not quite in a normal state. Emerging from gloom
into sudden cheerfulness, the effect upon Hilda was as if she were
just now created. After long torpor, receiving back her intellectual
activity, she derived an exquisite pleasure from the use of her
faculties, which were set in motion by causes that seemed inadequate.
She continually brought to Kenyon's mind the image of a child, making
its plaything of every object, but sporting in good faith, and with
a kind of seriousness. Looking up, for example, at the statue of St.
Michael, on the top of Hadrian's castellated tomb, Hilda fancied an
interview between the Archangel and the old emperor's ghost, who was
naturally displeased at finding his mausoleum, which he had ordained
for the stately and solemn repose of his ashes, converted to its present
purposes.

"But St. Michael, no doubt," she thoughtfully remarked, "would finally
convince the Emperor Hadrian that where a warlike despot is sown as the
seed, a fortress and a prison are the only possible crop."

They stopped on the bridge to look into the swift eddying flow of the
yellow Tiber, a mud puddle in strenuous motion; and Hilda wondered
whether the seven-branched golden candlestick,--the holy candlestick of
the Jews, which was lost at the Ponte Molle, in Constantine's time, had
yet been swept as far down the river as this.

"It probably stuck where it fell," said the sculptor; "and, by this
time, is imbedded thirty feet deep in the mud of the Tiber. Nothing will
ever bring it t