im?"

He walked on, thinking of the vast change in Donatello, since those days
of gayety and innocence, when the young Italian was new in Rome, and was
just beginning to be sensible of a more poignant felicity than he had
yet experienced, in the sunny warmth of Miriam's smile. The growth of
a soul, which the sculptor half imagined that he had witnessed in his
friend, seemed hardly worth the heavy price that it had cost, in the
sacrifice of those simple enjoyments that were gone forever. A creature
of antique healthfulness had vanished from the earth; and, in his stead,
there was only one other morbid and remorseful man, among millions that
were cast in the same indistinguishable mould.

The accident of thus meeting Donatello the glad Faun of his imagination
and memory, now transformed into a gloomy penitent--contributed to
deepen the cloud that had fallen over Kenyon's spirits. It caused him
to fancy, as we generally do, in the petty troubles which extend not a
hand's-breadth beyond our own sphere, that the whole world was saddening
around him. It took the sinister aspect of an omen, although he could
not distinctly see what trouble it might forebode.

If it had not been for a peculiar sort of pique, with which lovers are
much conversant, a preposterous kind of resentment which endeavors to
wreak itself on the beloved object, and on one's own heart, in requital
of mishaps for which neither are in fault, Kenyon might at once have
betaken himself to Hilda's studio, and asked why the appointment was not
kept. But the interview of to-day was to have been so rich in present
joy, and its results so important to his future life, that the bleak
failure was too much for his equanimity. He was angry with poor Hilda,
and censured her without a hearing; angry with himself, too, and
therefore inflicted on this latter criminal the severest penalty in
his power; angry with the day that was passing over him, and would not
permit its latter hours to redeem the disappointment of the morning.

To confess the truth, it had been the sculptor's purpose to stake all
his hopes on that interview in the galleries of the Vatican. Straying
with Hilda through those long vistas of ideal beauty, he meant, at last,
to utter himself upon that theme which lovers are fain to discuss in
village lanes, in wood paths, on seaside sands, in crowded streets; it
little matters where, indeed, since roses are sure to blush along the
way, and daisies and violet