m.

The birds flew away at the noise of my approach, and perched on the
cornice of the hall, or on the tester of the bed. I recognized Raphael,
pale and thin as he was. His countenance, though no longer youthful,
had not lost its peculiar character; but a change had come over its
loveliness, and its beauty was now of the grave. Rembrandt would have
wished for no better model for his "Christ in the Garden of Olives."
His dark hair clustered thickly on his shoulders, and was thrown back
in disorder, as by the weary hand of the laborer when the sweat and
toil of the day is over. The long untrimmed beard grew with a natural
symmetry that disclosed the graceful curve of the lip, and the contour
of the cheek; there was still the noble outline of the nose, the fair
and delicate complexion, the pensive and now sunken eye. His shirt,
thrown open on the chest, displayed his muscular though attenuated
frame, which might yet have appeared majestic, had his weakness allowed
him to sit erect.

He knew me at a glance, made one step forward with extended arms, and
fell back upon the bed. We first wept, and then talked together. He
related the past; how, when he had thought to cull the flowers or
fruits of life, his hopes had ever been marred by fortune or by
death,--the loss of his father, mother, wife, and child; his reverses
of fortune, and the compulsory sale of his ancestral domain; he told
how he retired to his ruined home, with no other companionship than
that of his mother's old herdsman, who served him without pay, for the
love he bore to his house; and lastly, spoke of the consuming languor
which would sweep him away with the autumnal leaves, and lay him in the
churchyard beside those he had loved so well. His intense imaginative
faculty might be seen strong even in death, and in idea he loved to
endow with a fanciful sympathy the turf and flowers which would blossom
on his grave.

"Do you know what grieves me most?" said he, pointing to the fringe of
little birds which were perched round the top of his bed. "It is to
think that next spring these poor little ones, my latest friends, will
seek for me in vain in the tower. They will no longer find the broken
pane through which to fly in; and on the floor, the little flocks of
wool from my mattress with which to build their nests. But the old
nurse, to whom I bequeath my little all, will take care of them as long
as she lives," he resumed, as if to comfort himself with the ide