Upon the stone pavement, immediately in front of the altar, sat a
little figure so motionless, that a casual glance would probably have
included it among the consecrated and permanent images of the silent
sanctuary;--the figure of a child, whose age could not have been
accurately computed from the inspection of the countenance, which
indexed a degree of grave mature wisdom wholly incompatible with the
height of the body and the size of the limbs.

If devotional promptings had brought her to the Nuns' Chapel, her
orisons had been concluded, for she had turned her back upon the
altar, and sat gazing sorrowfully down at her lap, where lay in
pathetic _pose_ a white rabbit and a snowy pigeon,--both dead, quite
stark and cold,--laid out in state upon the spotless linen apron,
around which a fluted ruffle ran crisp and smooth. One tiny waxen
hand held a broken lily, and the other was vainly pressed upon the
lids of the rabbit's eyes, trying to close lovingly the pink orbs
that now stared so distressingly through glazing film. The first
passionate burst of grief had spent its force in the tears that left
the velvety cheeks and chin as dewy as rain-washed rose leaves, while
not a trace of moisture dimmed the large eyes that wore a proud,
defiant, and much injured look, as though resentment were strangling
sorrow.

Unto whom or what shall I liken this fair, tender, childish face,
which had in the narrow space of ten years gathered such perfection
of outline, such unearthly purity of colour, such winsome grace, such
complex expressions? Probably amid the fig and olive groves of
Tuscany, Fra Bartolomeo found just such an incarnation of the angelic
ideal, which he afterward placed for the admiration of succeeding
generations in the winged heads that glorify the _Madonna della