reat Chimera, which emerged over the edge of the bowl in
guise of a handle, while on the opposite side bounded the youthful
Bellerophon, his bow at full stretch against the monster. The ornaments
of the base and the edge were of rare elegance. The inside was gilded,
the metal sonorous as a bell, and weighed three hundred pounds. Its
shape was extremely harmonious.

Never had Andrea Sperelli experienced so intensely both the delight and
the anxiety of the artist who watches the blind and irreparable action
of the acid; never before had he brought so much patience to bear upon
the delicate work of the dry point. The fact was, that like Lucas of
Leyden, he was a born engraver, possessed of an admirable knowledge, or,
more properly speaking, a rare instinct as to the most minute
particularity of time and degree, which may aid in varying the efficacy
of the acid on copper. It was not only practice, industry, and
intelligence, but more especially this inborn, well-nigh infallible
instinct which warned him of the exact instant at which the corrosion
had proceeded far enough to give such and such a value to the shadows
as, in the artist's intention, the engraving required. It was just this
triumph of mind over matter, this power of infusing an aesthetic spirit
into it, as it were, this mysterious correspondence between the throb of
his pulses and the progressive gnawing of the acid that was his pride,
his torment, and his joy.

In his dedication of these works to her, Elena felt herself deified by
her lover as was Isotta di Rimini by the medals which Sigismondo
Malatesta caused to be struck in her honour; and yet, on those days when
Andrea was at work, she would become moody and taciturn, as if under the
influence of some secret grief, or she would give way to such sudden
bursts of tenderness, mingled with tears and half-suppressed sobs, that
the young man was startled and, not understanding her, became
suspicious.

One evening, they were returning on horseback from the Aventine down the
Via di Santa Sabina, their eyes still filled with a vision of imperial
palaces flaming under the setting sun that burned red through the
cypresses and seemed to cover them with golden dust. They rode in
silence, for Elena seemed out of spirits, and her depression had
communicated itself to her lover. As they passed the church of Santa
Sabina, Andrea reined up his horse.

'Do you remember?' he said.

Some fowls, picking about peacefully in