iry man, with a
clever, impudent, tossed-up nose, a sharp little black eye, and waxed
ends to his moustache. On the side of his head he wore jauntily a little
crimson velvet smoking-cap, and I observed that his feet were encased in
brilliant slippers. On Serafina's remarking with dignity that I was the
friend of Mr. Theobald, he broke out into that fantastic French of which
certain Italians are so insistently lavish, and declared with fervour
that Mr. Theobald was a magnificent genius.

"I am sure I don't know," I answered with a shrug. "If you are in a
position to affirm it, you have the advantage of me. I have seen nothing
from his hand but the bambino yonder, which certainly is fine."

He declared that the bambino was a masterpiece, a pure Corregio. It was
only a pity, he added with a knowing laugh, that the sketch had not been
made on some good bit of honeycombed old panel. The stately Serafina
hereupon protested that Mr. Theobald was the soul of honour, and that he
would never lend himself to a deceit. "I am not a judge of genius," she
said, "and I know nothing of pictures. I am but a poor simple widow; but
I know that the Signor Teobaldo has the heart of an angel and the virtue
of a saint. He is my benefactor," she added sententiously. The after-
glow of the somewhat sinister flush with which she had greeted me still
lingered in her cheek, and perhaps did not favour her beauty; I could not
but fancy it a wise custom of Theobald's to visit her only by
candle-light. She was coarse, and her pour adorer was a poet.

"I have the greatest esteem for him," I said; "it is for this reason that
I have been uneasy at not seeing him for ten days. Have you seen him? Is
he perhaps ill?"

"Ill! Heaven forbid!" cried Serafina, with genuine vehemence.

Her companion uttered a rapid expletive, and reproached her with not
having been to see him. She hesitated a moment; then she simpered the
least bit and bridled. "He comes to see me--without reproach! But it
would not be the same for me to go to him, though, indeed, you may almost
call him a man of holy life."

"He has the greatest admiration for you," I said. "He would have been
honoured by your visit."

She looked at me a moment sharply. "More admiration than you. Admit
that!" Of course I protested with all the eloquence at my command, and
my mysterious hostess then confessed that she had taken no fancy to me on
my former visit, and that, Theobald not h