here the devil has she been so early?" thought he watching the flow
of her skirts, to which she contrived to impart a somewhat exaggerated
grace. "She looks too tired to have just come from a bath, and her
husband is waiting for her. It is strange, and puzzles me altogether."

Madame Marneffe having vanished within, the Baron wondered what his
daughter was doing in the shop. As he went in, still staring at Madame
Marneffe's windows, he ran against a young man with a pale brow and
sparkling gray eyes, wearing a summer coat of black merino, coarse
drill trousers, and tan shoes, with gaiters, rushing away headlong; he
saw him run to the house in the Rue du Doyenne, into which he went.

Hortense, on going into the shop, had at once recognized the famous
group, conspicuously placed on a table in the middle and in front of
the door. Even without the circumstances to which she owed her
knowledge of this masterpiece, it would probably have struck her by
the peculiar power which we must call the _brio_--the _go_--of great
works; and the girl herself might in Italy have been taken as a model
for the personification of _Brio_.

Not every work by a man of genius has in the same degree that
brilliancy, that glory which is at once patent even to the most
ignoble beholder. Thus, certain pictures by Raphael, such as the
famous _Transfiguration_, the _Madonna di Foligno_, and the frescoes
of the _Stanze_ in the Vatican, do not at first captivate our
admiration, as do the _Violin-player_ in the Sciarra Palace, the
portraits of the Doria family, and the _Vision of Ezekiel_ in the
Pitti Gallery, the _Christ bearing His Cross_ in the Borghese
collection, and the _Marriage of the Virgin_ in the Brera at Milan.
The _Saint John the Baptist_ of the Tribuna, and _Saint Luke painting
the Virgin's portrait_ in the Accademia at Rome, have not the charm of
the _Portrait of Leo X._, and of the _Virgin_ at Dresden.

And yet they are all of equal merit. Nay, more. The _Stanze_, the
_Transfiguration_, the panels, and the three easel pictures in the
Vatican are in the highest degree perfect and sublime. But they demand
a stress of attention, even from the most accomplished beholder, and
serious study, to be fully understood; while the _Violin-player_, the
_Marriage of the Virgin_, and the _Vision of Ezekiel_ go straight to
the heart through the portal of sight, and make their home there. It
is a pleasure to receive them thus without an effort; if it i