cular that I passed at his pillow, listening
to his wild snatches of regret, of aspiration, of rapture and awe at the
phantasmal pictures with which his brain seemed to swarm, comes back to
my memory now like some stray page from a lost masterpiece of tragedy.
Before a week was over we had buried him in the little Protestant
cemetery on the way to Fiesole. The Signora Serafina, whom I had caused
to be informed of his illness, had come in person, I was told, to inquire
about its progress; but she was absent from his funeral, which was
attended by but a scanty concourse of mourners. Half a dozen old
Florentine sojourners, in spite of the prolonged estrangement which had
preceded his death, had felt the kindly impulse to honour his grave.
Among them was my friend Mrs. Coventry, whom I found, on my departure,
waiting in her carriage at the gate of the cemetery.

"Well," she said, relieving at last with a significant smile the
solemnity of our immediate greeting, "and the great Madonna? Have you
seen her, after all?"

"I have seen her," I said; "she is mine--by bequest. But I shall never
show her to you."

"And why not, pray?"

"My dear Mrs. Coventry, you would not understand her!"

"Upon my word, you are polite."

"Excuse me; I am sad and vexed and bitter." And with reprehensible
rudeness I marched away. I was excessively impatient to leave Florence;
my friend's dark spirit seemed diffused through all things. I had packed
my trunk to start for Rome that night, and meanwhile, to beguile my
unrest, I aimlessly paced the streets. Chance led me at last to the
church of San Lorenzo. Remembering poor Theobald's phrase about Michael
Angelo--"He did his best at a venture"--I went in and turned my steps to
the chapel of the tombs. Viewing in sadness the sadness of its immortal
treasures, I fancied, while I stood there, that they needed no ampler
commentary than these simple words. As I passed through the church again
to leave it, a woman, turning away from one of the side altars, met me
face to face. The black shawl depending from her head draped
picturesquely the handsome visage of Madonna Serafina. She stopped as
she recognised me, and I saw that she wished to speak. Her eye was
bright, and her ample bosom heaved in a way that seemed to portend a
certain sharpness of reproach. But the expression of my own face,
apparently, drew the sting from her resentment, and she addressed me in a
tone in which bitterness