e, and many a
time, as a mere girl, she had watched him at his work, perched upon a
scaffolding, as he decorated the vault of the main hall. She could not
remember the time when she had not heard him spoken of as a young
genius, and she could distinctly recall the discussion which had taken
place when his fate had been decided for him, and when he had been at
last told that he might become an artist if he chose. At that time she
had looked upon him with a sort of wondering admiration in which there
was much real friendly feeling, and as she grew up and saw what he could
do, and learned to appreciate it, she silently determined that he should
one day help her to restore the dilapidated Palazzetto Borgia, where her
father and mother had died in her infancy, and which she loved with that
sort of tender attachment which children brought up by distant relations
often feel for whatever has belonged to their own dimly remembered
parents.

There was a natural intimacy between the young girl and the artist. Long
ago she had played at ball with him in the great courtyard of the Gerano
castle, when he had been at home for his holidays, wearing a black
cassock and a three-cornered hat, like a young priest. Then, all at
once, instead of a priest he had been a painter, dressed like other men
and working in the house in which she lived. She had played with his
colours, had scrawled with his charcoals upon the white plastered walls,
had asked him questions, and had talked with him about the famous
pictures in the Braccio gallery. And all this had happened not once, but
many times in the course of years. Then she had unfolded to him her
schemes about her own little palace, and he had promised to help her, by
and bye, half jesting, half in earnest. She would give him rooms in the
upper story to live in, she said, disposing of everything beforehand. He
should be close to his work, and have it under his hand always until it
was finished. And when there was no more to do, he might still live
there and have his studio at the top of the old house, with an entrance
of his own, leading by a narrow staircase to one of the dark streets at
the back. She had noticed all sorts of peculiarities of the building in
her occasional visits to it with the governess,--as, for instance, that
there was a convenient interior staircase leading from the great hall to
the upper story, by a door once painted like the wall, and hard to
find, but now hanging on its