own part might help me to know what manner of woman she was. When she
perceived my intention she withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes solemnly,
and made me a severe curtsey. Theobald took my arm and led me rapidly
into the street.

"And what do you think of the divine Serafina?" he cried with fervour.

"It is certainly an excellent style of good looks!" I answered.

He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed hurried along by the
current of remembrance. "You should have seen the mother and the child
together, seen them as I first saw them--the mother with her head draped
in a shawl, a divine trouble in her face, and the bambino pressed to her
bosom. You would have said, I think, that Raphael had found his match in
common chance. I was coming in, one summer night, from a long walk in
the country, when I met this apparition at the city gate. The woman held
out her hand. I hardly knew whether to say, 'What do you want?' or to
fall down and worship. She asked for a little money. I saw that she was
beautiful and pale; she might have stepped out of the stable of
Bethlehem! I gave her money and helped her on her way into the town. I
had guessed her story. She, too, was a maiden mother, and she had been
turned out into the world in her shame. I felt in all my pulses that
here was my subject marvellously realised. I felt like one of the old
monkish artists who had had a vision. I rescued the poor creatures,
cherished them, watched them as I would have done some precious work of
art, some lovely fragment of fresco discovered in a mouldering cloister.
In a month--as if to deepen and sanctify the sadness and sweetness of it
all--the poor little child died. When she felt that he was going she
held him up to me for ten minutes, and I made that sketch. You saw a
feverish haste in it, I suppose; I wanted to spare the poor little mortal