As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a remarkable object in the centre of the nave.  It was either the actual body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk.  This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on a slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side, another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot.  There was music, too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle.  From beneath the pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De Profundis, which sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so dismally did it rumble through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the flat gravestones and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy mist.

“I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church,” remarked the sculptor.  “In the study of my art, I have gained many a hint from the dead which the living could never have given me.”

“I can well imagine it,” answered Miriam.  “One clay image is readily copied from another.  But let us first see Guido’s picture.  The light is favorable now.”

Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you enter the nave; and there they beheld,—­not the picture, indeed,—­but a closely drawn curtain.  The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught they know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry fee.  Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a veil, and seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit.

The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his fallen adversary.  It was an image of that greatest of future events, which we hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,—­but find so very long in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle.

“Where can Hilda be?” exclaimed Kenyon.  “It is not her custom ever to fail in an engagement; and the present one was made entirely on her account.  Except herself, you know, we were all agreed in our recollection of the picture.”

“But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you perceive,” said Miriam, directing his attention to the point on which their dispute of the night before had arisen.  “It is not easy to detect her astray as regards any picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested.”

“And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this,” observed the sculptor.  “No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in the world.  What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel’s face!  There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; and yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being.”