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as though for a signal. Andrea started up, and his pale countenance flushed with a sudden glow of rapture. Is it the judges he is expecting, so soon after the sunrise? The bolt is rapidly withdrawn, the door opens, a young girl, followed by a sort of nurse, or gouvernante, enters.

"Constanza, you have come!"

"Did I ever fail you, Andrea?"

"Never, my good angel, my saint of Inspiration? Come, and let me see if I can dare to look once more upon the copy, and behold it fade into dull, impotent insignificance before the divine original!"

Andrea's Mary was not the offspring of his imagination; there, before him, beamed that guileless countenance, stood that shape full of artless grace and infantile purity, which he had so faithfully transmitted to marble. But the "lunar beauty of sculpture" could not convey the lustre of those clear, blue eyes, the amber gleaming of the hair, the peach-like hue of the cheeks, the dewy rosiness of the tender lips, the auroral freshness of the whole form.

Something more than two years previous to the date of our narrative, the maiden's father chanced to see a statuette of St. Catharine modelled by Andrea, and was struck by the genius evinced by its execution. The Duke was not only an experienced judge but a liberal patron of art. He at once purchased the St. Catharine, sought out the