My daughter looks like a Minerva, and there she is
exactly as she looks."

"It is certainly a wonderful likeness," said Father Rocco, approaching
the statue.

"It the girl herself," cried the other. "Exactly her expression, and
exactly her features. Measure Maddalena, and measure Minerva, and from
forehead to chin, you won't find a hair-breadth of difference between
them."

"But how about the bust and arms of the figure, now the face is done?"
asked the priest, returning, as he spoke, to his own work.

"I may have the very model I want for them to-morrow. Little Nanina has
just given me the strangest message. What do you think of a mysterious
lady admirer who offers to sit for the bust and arms of my Minerva?"

"Are you going to accept the offer?" inquired the priest.

"I am going to receive her to-morrow; and if I really find that she is
the same height as Maddalena, and has a bust and arms worth modeling, of
course I shall accept her offer; for she will be the very sitter I have
been looking after for weeks past. Who can she be? That's the mystery
I want to find out. Which do you say, Rocco--an enthusiast or an
adventuress?"

"I do not presume to say, for I have no means of knowing."

"Ah, there you are with your moderation again. Now, I do presume to
assert that she must be either one or the other--or she would not have
forbidden Nanina to say anything about her in answer to all my first
natural inquiries. Where is Maddalena? I thought she was here a minute
ago."

"She is in Fabio's room," answered Father Rocco, softly. "Shall I call
her?"

"No, no!" returned Luca. He stopped, looked round at the workmen, who
were chipping away mechanically at their bit of drapery; then advanced
close to the priest, with a cunning smile, and continued in a whisper,
"If Maddalena can only get from Fabio's room here to Fabio's palace over
the way, on the Arno--come, come, Rocco! don't shake your head. If
I brought her up to your church door one of these days, as Fabio
d'Ascoli's betrothed, you would be glad enough to take the rest of the
business off my hands, and make her Fabio d'Ascoli's wife. You are a
very holy man, Rocco, but you know the difference between the clink of
the money-bag and the clink of the chisel for all that!"

"I am sorry to find, Luca," returned the priest, coldly, "that you allow
yourself to talk of the most delicate subjects in the coarsest way. This
is one of the minor sins of the tongue which i