“Willingly.  This coast-line with the run of breaking surf was taken on the shores of Normandy, some few miles from Dieppe.  This sunset is a recollection of a glorious evening near Frankfort, and those purple mountains in the distance are part of the Taunus range.  Here is an old mediaeval gateway at Solothurn, in Switzerland.  This wild heath near the sea is in the neighborhood of Biscay.  This quaint knot of ruinous houses in a weed-grown Court was sketched at Bruges.  Do you see that milk-girl with her scarlet petticoat and Flemish faille? She supplied us with milk, and her dairy was up that dark archway.  She stood for me several times, when I wanted a foreground figure.”

“You have travelled a great deal,” I said.  “Were you long in Belgium?”

“Yes; I lived there for some years.  I was first pupil, then teacher, in a large school in Brussels.  I was afterwards governess in a private family in Bruges.  Of late, however, I have preferred to live in Paris, and give morning lessons.  I have more liberty thus, and more leisure.”

“And these two little quaint bronze figures?”

“Hans Sachs and Peter Vischer.  I brought them from Nuremberg.  Hans Sachs, you see, wears a furred robe, and presses a book to his breast.  He does not look in the least like a cobbler.  Peter Vischer, on the contrary, wears his leather apron and carries his mallet in his hand.  Artist and iron-smith, he glories in his trade, and looks as sturdy a little burgher as one would wish to see.”

“And this statuette in green marble?”

“A copy of the celebrated ‘Pensiero’ of Michel Angelo—­in other words, the famous sitting statue of Lorenzo de Medici, in the Medicean chapel in Florence.  I had it executed for me on the spot by Bazzanti.”

“A noble figure!”

“Indeed it is—­a noble figure, instinct with life, and strength, and meditation.  My first thought on seeing the original was that I would not for worlds be condemned to pass a night alone with it.  I should every moment expect the musing hand to drop away from the stern mouth, and the eyes to turn upon me!”

“These,” said I, pausing at the chimney-piece, “are souvenirs of Switzerland.  How delicately those chamois are carved out of the hard wood!  They almost seem to snuff the mountain air!  But here is a rapier with a hilt of ornamented steel—­where did this come from?”

I had purposely led up the conversation to this point.  I had patiently questioned and examined for the sake of this one inquiry, and I waited her reply as if my life hung on it.

Her whole countenance changed.  She took it down, and her eyes filled with tears.

“It was my father’s,” she said, tenderly.

“Your father’s!” I exclaimed, joyfully.  “Heaven be thanked!  Did you say your father’s?”

She looked up surprised, then smiled, and faintly blushed.

“I did,” she replied.