loomy old palace of the Cencis
had an interest for Hilda, although not sufficiently strong, hitherto,
to overcome the disheartening effect of the exterior, and draw her over
its threshold. The adjacent piazza, of poor aspect, contained only an
old woman selling roasted chestnuts and baked squash-seeds; she looked
sharply at Hilda, and inquired whether she had lost her way.

"No," said Hilda; "I seek the Palazzo Cenci."

"Yonder it is, fair signorina," replied the Roman matron. "If you wish
that packet delivered, which I see in your hand, my grandson Pietro
shall run with it for a baiocco. The Cenci palace is a spot of ill omen
for young maidens."

Hilda thanked the old dame, but alleged the necessity of doing her
errand in person. She approached the front of the palace, which, with
all its immensity, had but a mean appearance, and seemed an abode which
the lovely shade of Beatrice would not be apt to haunt, unless her doom
made it inevitable. Some soldiers stood about the portal, and gazed at
the brown-haired, fair-cheeked Anglo-Saxon girl, with approving glances,
but not indecorously. Hilda began to ascend the staircase, three lofty
flights of which were to be surmounted, before reaching the door whither
she was bound.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP

Between Hilda and the sculptor there had been a kind of half-expressed
understanding, that both were to visit the galleries of the Vatican
the day subsequent to their meeting at the studio. Kenyon, accordingly,
failed not to be there, and wandered through the vast ranges of
apartments, but saw nothing of his expected friend. The marble faces,
which stand innumerable along the walls, and have kept themselves so
calm through the vicissitudes of twenty centuries, had no sympathy
for his disappointment; and he, on the other hand, strode past these
treasures and marvels of antique art, with the indifference which any
preoccupation of the feelings is apt to produce, in reference to objects
of sculpture. Being of so cold and pure a substance, and mostly deriving
their vitality more from thought than passion, they require to be seen
through a perfectly transparent medium.

And, moreover, Kenyon had counted so much upon Hilda's delicate
perceptions in enabling him to look at two or three of the statues,
about which they had talked together, that the entire purpose of his
visit was defeated by her absence. It is a delicious sort of mutual aid,
when the