s, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield,
and to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole
hours, till the sacristan put out the lights.

He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no
humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced
him.

Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the
fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they
were actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the
gentle, tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.

One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted
time, a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted
into his brain like a revelation.

A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.

What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.

Memory should aid him to gain his purpose. What woman had ever been
fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?

He distinctly recalled her eyes and lips, and during the last few days
remaining to him, his Madonna obtained Florette's joyous expression,
while the sensual, alluring charm, that had been peculiar to the mouth
of the musician's daughter, soon hovered around the Virgin's lips.

Ay, this was a mother, this must be a true mother, for the picture
resembled his own!

The gloomier the mood that pervaded his own soul, the more sunny and
bright the painting seemed. He could not weary of gazing at it, for it
transported him to the happiest hours of his childhood, and when the
Madonna looked down upon him, it seemed as if he beheld the balsams
behind the window of the smithy in the market-place, and again saw the
Handsome nobles, who lifted him from his laughing mother's lap to set
him on their shoulders.

Yes! In this picture he had been aided by the "joyous art," in whose
honor Paolo Veronese, had at one of Titian's banquets, started up,
drained a glass of wine to the dregs, and hurled it through the window
into the canal.

He believed himself sure of success, and could no longer cherish anger
against Isabella. She had led him back into the right path, and it would
be sweet, rapturously sweet, to bear the beloved maiden tenderly and
gently in his strong arms over the rough places of life.

One morning, according to the agreement, he notified Coello that the
Madonna was completed.

T