to bring out the moral, that woman must strike through her own heart to
reach a human life, whatever were the motive that impelled her.

One of the sketches represented the daughter of Herodias receiving the
head of John the Baptist in a charger. The general conception appeared
to be taken from Bernardo Luini's picture, in the Uffizzi Gallery at
Florence; but Miriam had imparted to the saint's face a look of gentle
and heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes fixed upward at the
maiden; by the force of which miraculous glance, her whole womanhood was
at once awakened to love and endless remorse.

These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Donatello's peculiar
temperament. He gave a shudder; his face assumed a look of trouble,
fear, and disgust; he snatched up one sketch after another, as if about
to tear it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings, he
shrank back from the table and clasped his hands over his eyes.

"What is the matter, Donatello?" asked Miriam, looking up from a
letter which she was now writing. "Ah! I did not mean you to see those
drawings. They are ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things
that I created, but things that haunt me. See! here are some trifles
that perhaps will please you better."

She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indicated a happier mood
of mind, and one, it is to be hoped, more truly characteristic of the
artist. Supposing neither of these classes of subject to show anything
of her own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of fancy,
and a singular faculty of putting what looked like heart into her
productions. The latter sketches were domestic and common scenes, so
finely and subtilely idealized that they seemed such as we may see