house with his reputed father; and not to make an unnecessary mystery of
this connection, such was in truth the relationship between Olivier
Dalibard and Honore Gabriel Varney,--a name significant of the double and
illegitimate origin: a French father, an English mother. Dropping,
however, the purely French appellation of Honore, he went familiarly by
that of Gabriel. Half-way down the steps stood the lad, pencil and
tablet in hand, sketching. Let us look over his shoulder: it is his
father's likeness,--a countenance in itself not very remarkable at the
first glance, for the features were small; but when examined, it was one
that most persons, women especially, would have pronounced handsome, and
to which none could deny the higher praise of thought and intellect. A
native of Provence, with some Italian blood in his veins,--for his
grandfather, a merchant of Marseilles, had married into a Florentine
family settled at Leghorn,--the dark complexion common with those in the
South had been subdued, probably by the habits of the student, into a
bronze and steadfast paleness which seemed almost fair by the contrast of
the dark hair which he wore unpowdered, and the still darker brows which
hung thick and prominent over clear gray eyes. Compared with the
features, the skull was disproportionally large, both behind and before;
and a physiognomist would have drawn conclusions more favourable to the
power than the tenderness of the Provencal's character from the compact
closeness of the lips and the breadth and massiveness of the iron jaw.
But the son's sketch exaggerated every feature, and gave to the
expression a malignant and terrible irony not now, at least, apparent in
the quiet and meditative aspect. Gabriel himself, as be stood, would
have been a more tempting study to many an artist. It is true that he was
small for his years; but his frame had a vigour in its light proportions
which came from a premature and almost adolescent symmetry of shape and
muscular development. The countenance, however, had much of effeminate
beauty: the long hair reached the shoulders, but did not curl,--straight,