isk and
fountain. With a gesture that impressed Kenyon as at once suppliant and
imperious, she seemed to intimate to a figure which had attended her
thus far, that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertinacious
model, however, remained immovable.

And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, according to the
interpretation he might put upon it, was either too trivial to be
mentioned, or else so mysteriously significant that he found it
difficult to believe his eyes. Miriam knelt down on the steps of the
fountain; so far there could be no question of the fact. To other
observers, if any there were, she probably appeared to take this
attitude merely for the convenience of dipping her fingers into the gush
of water from the mouth of one of the stone lions. But as she clasped
her hands together after thus bathing them, and glanced upward at the
model, an idea took strong possession of Kenyon's mind that Miriam was
kneeling to this dark follower there in the world's face!

"Do you see it?" he said to Hilda.

"See what?" asked she, surprised at the emotion of his tone. "I see
Miriam, who has just bathed her hands in that delightfully cool water. I
often dip my fingers into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that
used to be one of my playmates in my New England village."

"I fancied I saw something else," said Kenyon; "but it was doubtless a
mistake."

But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into the hidden
significance of Miriam's gesture, what a terrible thraldom did it
suggest! Free as she seemed to be,--beggar as he looked,--the nameless
vagrant must then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets
of Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly than any captive queen of
yore following in an emperor's triumph. And was it conceivable that
she would have been thus enthralled unless some great error--how great
Kenyon dared not think--or some fatal weakness had given this dark
adversary a vantage ground?

"Hilda," said he abruptly, "who and what is Miriam? Pardon me; but are
you sure of her?"

"Sure of her!" repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, for her friend's
sake. "I am sure that she is kind, good, and generous; a true and
faithful friend, whom I love dearly, and who loves me as well! What more
than this need I be sure of?"

"And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor?--nothing against
her?" continued the sculptor, without heeding the irritation of Hilda's
tone. "Thes