graceful and easy
position of the limbs. The eyes of both were radiantly bright, and in
the large, well-opened orbs of the infant Saviour, the painter had
introduced a something never seen in life--a premature and pathetic
seriousness, awfully indicative of his high and hallowed destiny.
Above the stately plane-tree were soaring three angels of more than
Grecian beauty; and their features, in which a sacred innocence of
look was blended with feminine grace and softness, reminded me
powerfully of that exquisite design in Raffaelle's pictorial
Bible--the "three angels before Abraham's threshold."

In the middle-distance the ass was grazing, and Joseph, whose features
the artist had borrowed from the well-chiselled head of an old
peasant, stood leaning on his staff, like a faithful servant who has
succeeded in rescuing from imminent peril the treasure intrusted to
him. The picture was upright and on a large scale; the Madonna and
Bambino were painted the size of life, and the rich colouring of the
heads and draperies was finely relieved by the local tints and highly
finished bark and leafage of the plane-tree, behind which the immense
landscape receded in wide and brilliant perspective.

My mother was inexpressibly delighted with this valuable token of his
regard, and her affection for the highly-gifted painter became truly
maternal.

About this period I remarked a mysterious change in the looks and
habits of Colonna. His prompt and flowing language gave place to a
moody and oppressive silence; his deportment was occasionally more
abrupt and impassioned; and his eloquent features betrayed some hidden
source of grief and perplexity. The increased duration and frequency
of his rambles from the villa excited at length my attention and
remonstrance. In justification, he pleaded, as before, that he was a
man of itinerant habits, and too mercurial in temperament to remain
long in any place. This explanation had now, however, ceased to
be satisfactory. Our intercourse was obviously less cordial and
incessant. He had of late rarely sought my society in his excursions,
and this circumstance, in connection with his altered look and manner,
made me suspect some change in his feelings towards me. I determined
to solve a mystery so painful and embarrassing, and succeeded ere
long in obtaining his confession, during a still and beautiful night,
a large portion of which we passed together in a myrtle arbour, which
crowned a cool emin