ies of art in the way of mosaics and
antiquities from different ruins of Italy, which, for a man who was by
no means a Stewart or an Astor, showed great liberality. Uncle could
not afford, like ostentatious millionnaires, to dazzle the public with
paintings bought by the yard; but for a man of his means he displayed,
I think, a true love for art and a strong desire to encourage it. His
purchases, too, were very different from the second-rate pictures so
often purchased abroad by uncultivated eyes, for instead of depending
merely upon his own judgment, he asked the assistance of the sculptor
Story in choosing his souvenirs; and his collection, though small, is
admirable, containing two or three _bona-fide_ old masters, purchased
at the sales of private galleries in Florence and Rome.

The pictures, like the books, have been kept hitherto in the house in
the woods, but this spring Ida moved them all to the roadside house
that we might constantly enjoy them, and the parlor now presents quite
the appearance of a museum. It is over the music-room, and its long
French windows open upon a balcony, from which we daily admire our
tender, Italian-like sunsets. To the right it is overhung by the
branches of our favorite apple-tree, from whose clusters of tiny fruit
we each chose an apple some days since. Gabrielle then marked them
with the owner's initial cut out of paper, the form of which we will
find in the autumn indelibly impressed in the apple's rosy cheek.

But to return to our museum. Upon ascending the stairs one's eyes
first rest upon the "very saddest face ever painted or conceived," as
Hawthorne describes the beautiful Cenci. While in Rome I resided upon
the Piazza Barberini, opposite the palace containing this exquisite
painting, and I visited it with a devotion almost equalling Hilda's.
Much excitement prevailed that winter in art circles concerning the
authenticity of this picture, and hot discussions took place wherever
the believers and unbelievers chanced to meet. No possible proof
existed, one party would declare, that Guido had ever painted Beatrice
Cenci; and no one had thought of it as other than a fancy head until
Shelley had aroused the interest of the public in the half-forgotten
tragedy of poor Beatrice's sad life by the sombre drama, "The Cenci."
From that time, they say, caprice has christened this picture Beatrice
Cenci, and Hawthorne has added much to its interest by the prominence
he gives i