bestirred itself occasionally, as if for the sole
purpose of breathing upon his cheek and dying softly away, when he would
fain have felt a little more decided kiss. This shy but loving breeze
reminded him strangely of what Hilda's deportment had sometimes been
towards himself.

The weather had very much to do, no doubt, with these genial and
delightful sensations, that made the sculptor so happy with mere life,
in spite of a head and heart full of doleful thoughts, anxieties, and
fears, which ought in all reason to have depressed him. It was like no
weather that exists anywhere, save in Paradise and in Italy; certainly
not in America, where it is always too strenuous on the side either of
heat or cold. Young as the season was, and wintry, as it would have
been under a more rigid sky, it resembled summer rather than what we
New Englanders recognize in our idea of spring. But there was an
indescribable something, sweet, fresh, and remotely affectionate, which
the matronly summer loses, and which thrilled, and, as it were, tickled
Kenyon's heart with a feeling partly of the senses, yet far more a
spiritual delight. In a word, it was as if Hilda's delicate breath were
on his cheek.

After walking at a brisk pace for about half an hour, he reached a
spot where an excavation appeared to have been begun, at some not
very distant period. There was a hollow space in the earth, looking
exceedingly like a deserted cellar, being enclosed within old
subterranean walls, constructed of thin Roman bricks, and made
accessible by a narrow flight of stone steps. A suburban villa had
probably stood over this site, in the imperial days of Rome, and these
might have been the ruins of a bathroom, or some other apartment that
was required to be wholly or partly under ground. A spade can scarcely
be put into that soil, so rich in lost and forgotten things, without
hitting upon some discovery which would attract all eyes, in any other
land. If you dig but a little way, you gather bits of precious marble,
coins, rings, and engraved gems; if you go deeper, you break into
columbaria, or into sculptured and richly frescoed apartments that look
like festive halls, but were only sepulchres.

The sculptor descended into the cellar-like cavity, and sat down on a
block of stone. His eagerness had brought him thither sooner than
the appointed hour. The sunshine fell slantwise into the hollow, and
happened to be resting on what Kenyon at first took to