hing
satisfactory. Now, you know the director of the museum well. Get him to
let you make a copy of it. I give music-lessons to the Comte de Lanty's
daughter, Mademoiselle Marianina, and I'll talk of your copy. If you
succeed, as of course you will, the count will buy it and pay you forty
times the cost of a trip to Sicily."

Two days later I began the work, and, as it suited my taste, I worked so
hotly at it that by the end of three weeks the Lanty family, escorted
by Desroziers, came to see my copy. The count, who seemed to me a good
connoisseur, declared himself satisfied with the work and bought
it. Mademoiselle Marianina, who was the heiress and favorite of her
grand-uncle, was particularly delighted with it. Marianina was then
about twenty-one years old, and I shall not make you her portrait
because you know Madame de l'Estorade, to whom her likeness is
extraordinary. Already an accomplished musician, this charming girl had
a remarkable inclination for all the arts. Coming from time to time to
my studio to watch the completion of the statue, a taste for sculpture
seized her, as it did the Princesse Marie d'Orleans, and until the
departure of the family, which took place a few months before I myself
left Rome, Mademoiselle de Lanty took lessons from me in modelling.

I never dreamed of being another Saint-Preux or Abelard, but I must own
that I found rare happiness in imparting my knowledge. Marianina was so
gay and happy, her judgment of art so sound, her voice, when she sang,
so stirred my heart, that had it not been for her vast fortune, which
kept me at a distance, I should have run great danger to my peace
of mind. Admitted into the household on the footing of a certain
familiarity, I could see that my beautiful pupil took pleasure in our
intercourse, and when the family returned to Paris she expressed the
utmost regret at leaving Rome; I even fancied, God forgive me, that I
saw something like a tear in her eye when we parted.

On my return to Paris, some months later, my first visit was to the
hotel de Lanty. Marianina was too well bred and too kind at heart to
be discourteous to any one, but I felt at once that a cold restrained
manner was substituted for the gracious friendliness of the past. It
seemed to me probable that her evident liking, I will not say for me
personally, but for my conversation and acquirements, had been noticed
by her parents, who had doubtless taught her a lesson; in fact, the
stif