ter-pieces one by one. 'Just turn round Angelo,' he said; 'there is
something in the room that will interest you more.' It was a life-size
picture of Erminia, and so strikingly like, that it gave me, as it
were, a blow on the heart. During their early days in Rome, a
first-rate painter and friend of his had begun this wondrous picture,
and finished it with the exception of one hand and part of the dress.
The head, which looked over the shoulder with an indescribable
expression of proud bliss--actually beaming with love and beauty--was
highly finished, and as I said, one fancied one saw the exquisite
creature breathe. I could not speak a word, but I stood a full
half-hour motionless before it, from time to time wiping away the tears
which obscured the picture. It was then he told me for the first time,
that on the very day when she left him he had received a letter from an
old uncle, his only remaining relative, on whose consent to his
marriage he had laid great stress. Then he tried to tell me something
about those happy weeks in Rome, but his voice suddenly gave way, and
he went into the next room. I could not venture to follow him, and as
he did not return I concluded I was not wished for any longer, and
quietly crept down the steps accompanied only by the great dog, who
looked into my face as much as to say that he knew all about his
master's grief.

"I now resolved to wait until he should seek me out, but I might have
waited long! However, I sometimes saw Maddalena in the market or one of
the shops, and twice I spoke to her, asked for Signor Gustavo, and
heard that he was well, and if not out shooting was always reading
books, and allowed no one to enter, not even the priest, who had felt
it his duty to enquire for the mourner. In our village, where everyone
had been so enraged against him, the tide turned gradually in his
favour. People remembered the merry evenings over the wine-barrel, and
his courteous and sociable ways, and in time the women who had been the
most violent were quite conquered by his solitary sorrow. Many a one, I
suspect, would not have required much pressing to lend him her company
in that lonely villa, if he had only held up a finger. But month after
month passed by, and all went on in the old way.

"One night towards the end of August I had a headache, having drunk
more wine than usual, and the mosquitoes were more unconscionable than
ever: so that I sat up in bed, and began to think whether