tight across the mouth; but with a purity of line, a dazzling splendor
of skin, and intensity of look immeasurably superior to all the other
portraits.

She looks out of the frame with a cold, level glance; yet the lips
smile. One hand holds a dull-red rose; the other, long, narrow,
tapering, plays with a thick rope of silk and gold and jewels hanging
from the waist; round the throat, white as marble, partially confined
in the tight dull-red bodice, hangs a gold collar, with the device on
alternate enameled medallions, "AMOUR DURE--DURE AMOUR."

On reflection, I see that I simply could never have been in that room
or closet before; I must have mistaken the door. But, although the
explanation is so simple, I still, after several hours, feel terribly
shaken in all my being. If I grow so excitable I shall have to go to
Rome at Christmas for a holiday. I feel as if some danger pursued me
here (can it be fever?); and yet, and yet, I don't see how I shall ever
tear myself away.

_Dec. 10th_.--

I have made an effort, and accepted the Vice-Prefect's son's invitation
to see the oil-making at a villa of theirs near the coast. The villa,
or farm, is an old fortified, towered place, standing on a hillside
among olive-trees and little osier-bushes, which look like a bright
orange flame. The olives are squeezed in a tremendous black cellar,
like a prison: you see, by the faint white daylight, and the smoky
yellow flare of resin burning in pans, great white bullocks moving
round a huge millstone; vague figures working at pulleys and handles:
it looks, to my fancy, like some scene of the Inquisition. The