aints, some discoloured, some broken, a few in tolerable preservation,
which were either destined to be restored and repainted, or had served
as studies for the artist. Upon the walls hung a few pictures of female
saints, bedecked with garlands of flowers, which showed them to be
objects of devotion and respect in the eyes of the possessor. Among all
this confusion, space was scarcely left, in the small chamber of the
artist, for the pallet-bed and cumbrous press that formed his only
furniture.

Immediately before the chair into which the young man so hastily flung
himself, lay a rich missal, upon the adornment of which he had been
employed, before other thoughts and feelings had sent him to the window;
and when he again resumed his work, it was upon the face of a fair
saint, which formed the headpiece of a chapter, peering out from among
the various graceful arabesques that twined in the brightest colours
along the margin of the leaf.

In truth, the face of the young artist was almost as fair as that of the
bright being he was engaged in painting. His light brown hair was parted
in the middle, over a high white forehead, and fell in faintly waving
curls almost to his neck, forming a frame to the soft oval face, to
which his violet-blue melancholy-looking eyes, his calm,
finely-chiselled features, and the serious repose of his imaginative
mouth, imparted an air of gentleness and thoughtfulness combined. His
dark, sober-coloured, simple dress, although somewhat too severe to suit
his youthful figure, accorded well with the character of his
physiognomy. His falling collar displayed a full white throat, which
might have served as a model for a statue of Antinous, had it not borne
more the stamp of genius in its proportions than of physical
voluptuousness. The hands, which now hastily resumed their neglected
occupation, had all the fairness and well-moulded contour of a woman's,
without that delicacy of size which would have stamped them as
effeminate. Had he been aware of his own beauty, he might have copied
his own graceful form for a personification of the lily-bearing angel in
a group of the Annunciation.

The person who had startled him from the window, by opening the door of
his room, was an aged-looking woman, in a plain dress of coarse black
serge. She bore in her hands a coarse brown porringer filled with
steaming viands, a lump of dark homely bread, and a white cloth.

"Ah! my good Magdalena, art thou there?"