?"

"Ah!" replied Hilda, shuddering, "I really had quite forgotten
Beatrice's history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems
to reveal her character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable
crime, and she feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn
creature so longs to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into
nothingness! Her doom is just!"

"O Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword!" exclaimed her
friend. "Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all
made up of gentleness and mercy. Beatrice's sin may not have been so
great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible in the
circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, it may have been because her
nature was too feeble for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!" continued
Miriam passionately, "if I could only get within her consciousness!--if
I could but clasp Beatrice Cenci's ghost, and draw it into myself! I
would give my life to know whether she thought herself innocent, or the
one great criminal since time began."

As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked from the picture
into her face, and was startled to observe that her friend's expression
had become almost exactly that of the portrait; as if her passionate
wish and struggle to penetrate poor Beatrice's mystery had been
successful.

"O, for Heaven's sake, Miriam, do not look so!" she cried. "What an
actress you are! And I never guessed it before. Ah! now you are yourself
again!" she added, kissing her. "Leave Beatrice to me in future."

"Cover up your magical picture, then," replied her friend, "else I
never can look away from it. It is strange, dear Hilda, how an innocent,
delicate, white soul like yours has been able to seize the subtle
mystery of this portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it
so perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do you know, I
have come to you this morning on a small matter of business. Will you
undertake it for me?"

"O, certainly," said Hilda, laughing; "if you choose to trust me with
business."

"Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty," answered Miriam; "merely to
take charge of this packet, and keep it for me awhile."

"But why not keep it yourself?" asked Hilda.

"Partly because it will be safer in your charge," said her friend. "I
am a careless sort of person in ordinary things; while you, for all you
dwell so high above the world, have certain little housewifely ways o