Flemming waited no longer; but read with the eyes of a lover, not of a critic, the following description, which inspired him with a new enthusiasm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.

“I often reflect with delight upon the young artist’s life in Rome.  A stranger from the cold and gloomy North, he has crossed the Alps, and with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the Eternal City.  He dwells perhaps upon the Pincian Hill; and hardly a house there, which is not inhabited by artists from foreign lands.  The very room he lives in has been their abode from time out of mind.  Their names are written all over the walls; perhaps some further record of them left in a rough sketch upon the window-shutter, with an inscription and a date.  These things consecrate the place, in his imagination.  Even these names, though unknown to him, are not without associations in his mind.

“In that warm latitude he rises with the day.  The night-vapors are already rolling away over the Campagna sea-ward.  As he looks from his window, above and beyond their white folds he recognises the tremulous blue sea at Ostia.  Over Soracte rises the sun,—­over his own beloved mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof old.  Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome.  The city lies still asleep and silent.  But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks.  Presently the bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of those churches over the high altar, hangs a painting by some great master’s hand, whose beauty comes between him and heaven, so that he cannot pray, but wonder only.

“Among these works of art he passes the day; but oftenest in St. Peter’s and the Vatican.  Up the vast marble stair-case,—­through the Corridor Chiaramonti,—­through vestibules, galleries, chambers,—­he passes, as in a dream.  All are filled with busts and statues; or painted in daring frescoes.  What forms of strength and beauty! what glorious creations of the human mind! and in that last chamber of all, standing alone upon his pedestal, the Apollo found at Actium,—­in such a majestic attitude,—­with such a noble countenance, life-like, god-like!

“Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of the painters; but goes no further than the second.  For in the middle of that chamber a large painting stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished, though more than three hundred years ago the great artist completed it, and then laid his pencil away forever, leaving this last benediction to the world.  It is the Transfiguration of Christ by Raphael.  A child looks not at the stars with greater wonder, than the artist at this painting.  He knows how many studious years are in that picture.  He knows the difficult path that leads to perfection, having himself taken some of the first steps.—­Thus