lovely virgin saint, seeming to play smilingly with the instrument of
her martyrdom; here a grotesque miserere group, illustrating a fairy
tale, or caricaturing a popular fable here a beauteous festoon of
flowers and fruit, emulating nature in all save colour; and on the
work-table itself, growing under the master's hand, was a long
wreath, entirely composed of leaves and seed-vessels in their quaint
and beauteous forms--the heart-shaped shepherd's purse, the mask-like
skull-cap, and the crowned urn of the henbane. The starred cap of
the poppy was actually being shaped under the tool, copied from a
green capsule, surmounted with purple velvety rays, which, together
with its rough and wavy leaf, was held in the hand of a young maiden
who knelt by the table, watching the work with eager interest.

She was not a beautiful girl--not one of those whose "bright eyes
rain influence, and judge the prize." She was too small, too slight,
too retiring for such a position. If there was something lily-like
in her drooping grace, it was not the queen-lily of the garden that
she resembled, but the retiring lily of the valley--so purely,
transparently white was her skin, scarcely tinted by a roseate blush
on the cheek, so tender and modest the whole effect of her slender
figure, and the soft, downcast, pensive brown eyes, utterly
dissimilar in hue from those of all her friends and kindred, except
perhaps the bright, quick ones of her uncle, the master-carver.
Otherwise, his portly form, open visage, and good-natured
stateliness, as well as his furred cap and gold chain, were
thoroughly those of the German burgomaster of the fifteenth century;
but those glittering black eyes had not ceased to betray their
French, or rather Walloon, origin, though for several generations
back the family had been settled at Ulm. Perhaps, too, it was
Walloon quickness and readiness of wit that had made them, so soon as