to put sleep far off. On the table before
him stood a photograph of Hallin, besides a miniature of his mother as a
girl. He had drawn the miniature closer to him, finding sympathy and joy
in its youth, in the bright expectancy of the eyes, and so wrote, as it
were, having both her and his friend in mind and sight.

To Hallin he had already spoken of Miss Boyce, drawing her in light,
casual, and yet sympathetic strokes as the pretty girl in a difficult
position whom one would watch with curiosity and some pity. To-night his
letter, which should have discussed a home colonisation scheme of
Hallin's, had but one topic, and his pen flew.

"Would you call her beautiful? I ask myself again and again, trying to
put myself behind your eyes. She has nothing, at any rate, in common
with the beauties we have down here, or with those my aunt bade me
admire in London last May. The face has a strong Italian look, but not
Italian of to-day. Do you remember the Ghirlandajo frescoes in Santa
Maria Novella, or the side groups in Andrea's frescoes at the
Annunziata? Among them, among the beautiful tall women of them, there
are, I am sure, noble, freely-poised, suggestive heads like hers--hair,
black wavy hair, folded like hers in large simple lines, and faces
with the same long, subtle curves. It is a face of the Renaissance,
extraordinarily beautiful, as it seems to me, in colour and expression;
imperfect in line, as the beauty which marks the meeting point
between antique perfection and modern character must always be. It
has _morbidezza_--unquiet melancholy charm, then passionate
gaiety--everything that is most modern grafted on things Greek and old.
I am told that Burne Jones drew her several times while she was in
London, with delight. It is the most _artistic_ beauty, having both the
harmonies and the dissonances that a full-grown art loves.

"She may be twenty or rather more. The mind has all sorts of ability;
comes to the right conclusion by a divine instinct, ignoring the how and
why. What does such a being want with the drudgery of learning? to such
keenness life will be master enough. Yet she has evidently read a good
deal--much poetry, some scattered political economy, some modern
socialistic books, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Carlyle. She takes everything
dramatically, imaginatively, goes straight from it to life, and back
again. Among the young people with whom she made acquaintance while she
was boarding in London and working