“From these immortal portraits, my Antonio, you may learn that colour was the grand secret of the great Venetian painters. Their pale forms are never white, nor their blooming cheeks rose-colour, but the true colour of life—­mellow, rich, and glowing; both men and women strictly true to nature, and looking as if they could turn pale with anger or blush with tender passion.  From these great men can best be learned how much charm may be conveyed by colour, and what life and glow, what passion, grace, and beauty it gives to form.

“But I weary thee, Antonio; and after such excitement thou hast need of repose.  To-morrow, let me see thee early.”

The exhausted youth gladly departed from a scene of so much trial; and, hastening to his gondola, sought refreshment in an excursion to the Lido.  Returning after nightfall, he landed on the Place of St Mark’s, and wandered through its cool arcades until they were deserted.  In vain, however, did he strive to banish the graceful form and grisly features of the stranger.  The strong impression he had received became so vivid and absorbing, that at every turn he thought he saw her gazing at him as if in mockery, and lighting up the deep shadows beneath the arches with her glowing orbs, which seemed to his disordered fancy to emit sparks and flashes of fire.  No longer able to resist the impulse, forgetting alike the paternal admonitions of the old painter, and the promises so sincerely given, he quitted the piazza and hastened to the palace of his father, the Proveditore Marcello, then absent on state affairs in the Levant.

Retiring to his own apartment, he fixed an easel with impetuous haste, and by lamp-light again began to sketch the Medusa head of the old woman.  Yielding himself up to this new frenzy, he succeeded beyond his hopes; a supernatural power seemed to guide his hand, and soon after midnight he had drawn to the life not only the appalling head, but the commanding and beautiful person, of the mysterious personage in the gondola.  After gazing awhile upon his work with triumphant delight, he retired to bed; but slept not until long after sunrise, and then the extraordinary incidents of the past day haunted his feverish dreams.  A female form, youthful and of surpassing beauty, hovered around his couch, but ever changing in appearance.  At first her head was invisible and veiled in mist, from which, at intervals, flashed features of resplendent loveliness, and eyes of heavenly blue, which beamed upon him with thrilling tenderness; and then the mist dispersed, and the beauteous phantom stooped down to kiss his cheek, when suddenly her blooming face darkened and withered into the death-like visage of that fearful stranger, and her long bright hair was converted into hissing sepents.  Starting with a scream of horror from his troubled and exhausting slumbers, he again sought refuge in his gondola, but returned, alas! to make his sketch into a picture, which the hues of