no ignoble name; she
might have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world with
pictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so
little, of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratified
some tastes that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could
be done only by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension of
the spectator. She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish
part, laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduring
remembrance, at the feet of those great departed ones whom she so loved
and venerated; and therefore the world was the richer for this feeble
girl.

Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are confined within
itself, she won out that glory by patient faith and self-devotion,
and multiplied it for mankind. From the dark, chill corner of a
gallery,--from some curtained chapel in a church, where the light came
seldom and aslant,--from the prince's carefully guarded cabinet, where
not one eye in thousands was permitted to behold it, she brought the
wondrous picture into daylight, and gave all its magic splendor for the
enjoyment of the world. Hilda's faculty of genuine admiration is one of
the rarest to be found in human nature; and let us try to recompense her
in kind by admiring her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humble
magnanimity in choosing to be the handmaid of those old magicians,
instead of a minor enchantress within a circle of her own.

The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a virgin's love! Would it
have been worth Hilda's while to relinquish this office for the sake of
giving the world a picture or two which it would call original; pretty
fancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in picture of so many
feminine achievements in literature!

CHAPTER VII

BEATRICE

Miriam was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home; for being endowed
with an infinite activity, and taking exquisite delight in the sweet
labor of which her life was full, it was Hilda's practice to flee abroad
betimes, and haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were those (but they
were very few) whom she ever chose to be the companions of her day; they
saw the art treasures of Rome, under her guidance, as they had never
seen them before. Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly
about pictures; she would probably have been puzzled by the technical
terms of her own art. Not that she had much to say about wh