, she had helped Hilda to
arrange her way of life, and had encouraged her through those first
weeks, when Rome is so dreary to every newcomer.

"But how lucky that you are at home today," said Miriam, continuing the
conversation which was begun, many pages back. "I hardly hoped to find
you, though I had a favor to ask,--a commission to put into your charge.
But what picture is this?"

"See!" said Hilda, taking her friend's hand, and leading her in front of
the easel. "I wanted your opinion of it."

"If you have really succeeded," observed Miriam, recognizing the picture
at the first glance, "it will be the greatest miracle you have yet
achieved."

The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish,
perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which
strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance
of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the
spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape.
There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so
that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The
whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any
single feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression was not
cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not
brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very saddest
picture ever painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of
sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition.
It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere
of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of
which--while yet her face is so close before us--makes us shiver as at a
spectre.

"Yes, Hilda," said her friend, after closely examining the picture,
"you have done nothing else so wonderful as this. But by what unheard-of
solicitations or secret interest have you obtained leave to copy Guido's
Beatrice Cenci? It is an unexampled favor; and the impossibility
of getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture shops with
Beatrices, gay, grievous, or coquettish, but never a true one among
them."

"There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard," said Hilda, "by
an artist capable of appreciating the spirit of the picture. It was
Thompson, who brought it away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the
rest of us) to set up his easel before it. As for me, I k