the enthusiasm of
the painter kindled, the ambition of the man despaired. But still he
went on, transfusing into his canvas the grandeur and simplicity of the
Italian school; still, though he felt palpably within him the creeping
advance of the deadliest and surest enemy to fame, he pursued, with
an unwearied ardour, the mechanical completion of his task; still, the
morning found him bending before the easel, and the night brought to his
solitary couch meditation rather than sleep. The fire, the irritability
which he had evinced before his illness had vanished, and the original
sweetness of his temper had returned; he uttered no complaint, he dwelt
upon no anticipation of success; hope and regret seemed equally dead
within him; and it was only when he caught the fond, glad eyes of his
aged attendant that his own filled with tears, or that the serenity of
his brow darkened into sadness.

This went on for some months; till one evening they found the painter
by his window, seated opposite to an unfinished picture. The pencil
was still in his hand; the quiet of settled thought was still upon
his countenance; the soft breeze of a southern twilight waved the hair
livingly from his forehead; the earliest star of a southern sky lent
to his cheek something of that subdued lustre which, when touched by
enthusiasm, it had been accustomed to wear; but these were only the
mockeries of life: life itself was no more! He had died, reconciled,
perhaps, to the loss of fame, in discovering that Art is to be loved for
itself, and not for the rewards it may bestow upon the artist.

There are two tombs close to each other in the strangers' burial-place
at Rome: they cover those for whom life, unequally long, terminated in
the same month. The one is of a woman, bowed with the burden of many
years: the other darkens over the dust of the young artist.

CHAPTER XXV.

Think upon my grief,
And on the justice of my flying hence,
To keep me from a most unholy match.--SHAKSPEARE.

"But are you quite sure," said General St. Leger, "are you quite sure
that this girl still permits Mordaunt's addresses?"

"Sure!" cried Miss Diana St. Leger, "sure, General! I saw it with my own
eyes. They were standing together in the copse, when I, who had long had
my suspicions, crept up, and saw them; and Mr. Mordaunt held her hand,
and kissed it every moment. Shocking and indecorous!"

"I hate that man! as proud as Lucifer," growled the Genera