it. The girl, however, who was not
greatly addicted to meditation and could not read, for books had not
then come into fashion, grew melancholy during these long sittings,
and her father perceived it. At first no remedy presented itself. He
endeavoured, indeed, to converse with her a little in his uncouth way;
but he had not cultivated the art of talking, and quickly exhausted his
topics. He next introduced his son Bernardo, the junior of Beatrice by
one year, whose efforts at creating amusement, being constrained and
unnatural, for he came against his will, were little more successful
than his own. At length the idea of engaging the services of his lodger,
with whom he had observed that Beatrice sometimes laughed and chatted
of an evening, occurred to him, and he forthwith mentioned the subject
to Spinello. The young man entertained a very strong affection for
Bernardo, who, if he wanted genius, was far from being destitute of
amiable and endearing qualities; and therefore, notwithstanding that he
felt it would greatly interfere with his studies, and trench upon his
time, he immediately determined to comply with the old man's desires.

The next morning saw Spinello installed in his new office. Beatrice was
seated like a statue in an antique chair with her arms crossed upon her
bosom, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, and her features screwed in spite
of herself, into an expression of weariness and impatience. By degrees,
however, as Spinello conversed with her, now of one trifle, then of
another, her eyes involuntarily wandered to that portion of the room in
which the young dialectician sat involved in shadow, and exerting all
his eloquence and ingenuity to awaken her attention. The experiment
succeeded. Spinello was entreated to be present the next day, the day
following, and, in fact, every day, until the portrait was completed,
or, at least, nearly so. He gazed, as I have said, upon the face of
Beatrice, and would sometimes spend a moment in examining the inanimate
representation of it, and in instituting a comparison between it and
the original; until one day forgetting in his idolatry of loveliness
the respect due to old age, he snatched the pencil from the hand of
Bernardo, and with singular ardour and impatience exclaimed--"Let me
finish it!" Without uttering a word, the old man, awed by the vehemence
of his manner, yielded up the pencil; and Spinello proceeded, as if in
a dream, to embody upon the canvass the idea of