“After all,” resumed Miriam, “if a woman had painted the original picture, there might have been something in it which we miss now.  I have a great mind to undertake a copy myself; and try to give it what it lacks.  Well; goodby.  But, stay!  I am going for a little airing to the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon.  You will think it very foolish, but I always feel the safer in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden as you are.  Will you come?”

“Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam,” she replied; “I have set my heart on giving another touch or two to this picture, and shall not stir abroad till nearly sunset.”

“Farewell, then,” said her visitor.  “I leave you in your dove-cote.  What a sweet, strange life you lead here; conversing with the souls of the old masters, feeding and fondling your sister doves, and trimming the Virgin’s lamp!  Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you tend her shrine?”

“Sometimes I have been moved to do so,” replied the Dove, blushing, and lowering her eyes; “she was a woman once.  Do you think it would be wrong?”

“Nay, that is for you to judge,” said Miriam; “but when you pray next, dear friend, remember me!”

She went down the long descent of the lower staircase, and just as she reached the street the flock of doves again took their hurried flight from the pavement to the topmost window.  She threw her eyes upward and beheld them hovering about Hilda’s head; for, after her friend’s departure, the girl had been more impressed than before by something very sad and troubled in her manner.  She was, therefore, leaning forth from her airy abode, and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a gesture of farewell, in the hope that these might alight upon Miriam’s heart, and comfort its unknown sorrow a little.  Kenyon the sculptor, who chanced to be passing the head of the street, took note of that ethereal kiss, and wished that he could have caught it in the air and got Hilda’s leave to keep it.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SUBURBAN VILLA

Donatello, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon and morning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelessly tendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese.  The entrance to these grounds (as all my readers know, for everybody nowadays has been in Rome) is just outside of the Porta del Popolo.  Passing beneath that not very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo’s architecture, a minute’s walk will transport the visitor from the small, uneasy, lava stones of the Roman pavement into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence a little farther stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion.  A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and populace, stranger and native, all who breathe Roman air, find free admission, and come hither to taste the languid enjoyment of the day-dream that they call life.