They had now emerged from the gateway of the palace; and partly concealed by one of the pillars of the portico stood a figure such as may often be encountered in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and nowhere else.  He looked as if he might just have stepped out of a picture, and, in truth, was likely enough to find his way into a dozen pictures; being no other than one of those living models, dark, bushy bearded, wild of aspect and attire, whom artists convert into saints or assassins, according as their pictorial purposes demand.

“Miriam,” whispered Hilda, a little startled, “it is your model!”

CHAPTER III

SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES

Miriam’s model has so important a connection with our story, that it is essential to describe the singular mode of his first appearance, and how he subsequently became a self-appointed follower of the young female artist.  In the first place, however, we must devote a page or two to certain peculiarities in the position of Miriam herself.

There was an ambiguity about this young lady, which, though it did not necessarily imply anything wrong, would have operated unfavorably as regarded her reception in society, anywhere but in Rome.  The truth was, that nobody knew anything about Miriam, either for good or evil.  She had made her appearance without introduction, had taken a studio, put her card upon the door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter in oils.  Her fellow professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well enough for the idle half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and the practice that distinguish the works of a true artist.

Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam’s pictures met with good acceptance among the patrons of modern art.  Whatever technical merit they lacked, its absence was more than supplied by a warmth and passionateness, which she had the faculty of putting into her productions, and which all the world could feel.  Her nature had a great deal of color, and, in accordance with it, so likewise had her pictures.

Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse; her manners were so far from evincing shyness, that it seemed easy to become acquainted with her, and not difficult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy.  Such, at least, was the impression which she made, upon brief contact, but not such the ultimate conclusion of those who really sought to know her.  So airy, free, and affable was Miriam’s deportment towards all who came within her sphere, that possibly they might never be conscious of the fact, but so it was, that they did not get on, and were seldom any further advanced into her good graces to-day than yesterday.  By some subtile quality, she kept people at a distance, without so much as letting them know that they were excluded from her inner circle.  She resembled one of those images of light, which conjurers evoke and cause to shine before us, in apparent tangibility, only an arm’s length beyond our grasp:  we make a step in advance, expecting to seize the illusion, but find it still precisely so far out of our reach.  Finally, society began to recognize the impossibility of getting nearer to Miriam, and gruffly acquiesced.