vestibule, and pausing at the open door of the studio looked timidly in. At that moment Maurice was closely absorbed in some effective finishing touches which he was giving to his picture, and he neither heard her light footsteps, nor saw her quiet figure at the door. She waited a minute, keeping perfectly still, and then seeing that the young artist was too busy to notice her, she threw a bunch of violets lightly into the room and retreated as noiselessly as she had come.

Scarcely had she vanished when the sound of many footsteps very different from the little flower-girl's light tread, loud gay voices talking rapidly, and frequent peals of laughter came up the stairs, and several young men with long hair and beards, and wearing velvet jackets and sombreros, rushed into the studio.

"Behold him, mes amis," exclaimed the foremost, waving his hand with a theatrical flourish, "if it is not his ghost!"

"Ghost!" cried Maurice, springing up, throwing down his palette and catching hold of the speakers, "Do I feel like a ghost ?" "Ma foi, no! No ghost ever gave such a grip. But, why were you not at the café this morning?"

"Oh, I took a sudden fit of industry, and have been hard at work since daybreak. But you all seem possessed with quite the contrary spirit. It is easy to see work has no place in your programme for to-day."

"The truth is, Maurice, mon cher, that when you were missed at the café this morning, old Herr Frederic-Karl's compatriote -declared something must have happened to you and began to tell us of all the fine fellows he had known murdered in the streets, or on the staircases since he came to Rome; calling it a cursed old city, a heap of heathenish ruins, only fit for thieves and wild beasts to live in, till the eyes of all the Italians began to glare furiously, and we should have had a tragedy on the spot if Karl had not contrived to silence him."

"Fancy Herr Frederic, the greatest Ro

"C'est ça," said Camille, twisting his moustache. "Eh bien, Gustave then took it into his wise head that Lazaro has found out you borrowed his diabolically handsome face for your Judas, and in revenge had poignarded you, and sent you to join Father Tiber's hidden treasures." Here cries of "No, no!" were heard from Gustave, but Camille coolly continued, "Then Alphonse offered to wager his magnificent stiletto against Gustave's maul-stick, that if you were assassinated it was not Lazaro who had done the deed, but some hired bravo paid to put you out of the way of the thousand and one Contessas and Principessas who have fallen in love with your beaux yeux. "It was now Alphonse's turn to protest, but Camille, raising his voice a little, and making a deprecating gesture, went on: "But Adrien being more hopeful and less romantic was ready to stake his new palette against an old plate that His Holiness knowing what a pious son of the Church you are, had sent for you in hot haste to paint his por trait, and that when it was finished you were to be the bearer of it to the Queen of Spain."

But the patience of his hearers was by this time quite exhausted, and Camille was silenced amidst a storm of hisses and groans. Certainly Camille can improvise like an Italian," said Maurice, when he could be heard. "But you are all so tête montée that it is clear you have some grand scheme of pleasure in view; out with it, if you don't wish me to expire of curiosity."

"What do you think of a festa somewhere between the Tiber and Monte Gennaro! I forget the name of the place, but Luigi and Tibaldi and the other natives know all about it. All the men at the cafe were talking about it to-day, and those who have been there say it is the most gloriously

beautiful country in the world-forests of oak and spini Christi, rocks and precipices, woody dells and little streams, and the ruins of old baronial castles. The brigands sometimes come down to the festa, and there may be a chance of all being carried off to the mountains! Think of that, mon brave!"

"What an exciting prospect!" said Maurice. "Well, give me a minute or two, mes amis, and I am with you."

"First let us see your morning's work," said one of the young men going up to the picture on which Maurice had been employed when they entered.

It was a water colour drawing of a street scene which Maurice had witnessed, full of life and colour. Two Trasteverini, with magnificent figures and grand Roman faces, high aquiline noses, square massive jaws and haughty defiant eyes, were playing at mona close to the steps of the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, surrounded by a little group of excited spectators-a beggar in a tattered cloak and a high pointed hat; a herdsman from the Campagna clad in goat skins and carrying a dangerous looking goad, such as cattle drivers use; a young girl coming from the fountain with a pitcher of water her petticoats somewhat ragged and scanty, but a great silver pin thrust through her heavy masses of black hair, and a string of red coral beads round her neck; an old white haired crone crouched on the pavement, a queer little bambino beside her; two or three fierce-looking men and as many half-naked boys-all watching the fascinating game and applauding and encouraging the gamesters with all their might; while, in striking contrast to the passionate intensity of the players, and the eager gesticulatnlookers-on, a young priest, whose face might have served for an ideal St. Francis of Assisi, with deep, sad eyes and a delicate cheek, pale with vigils and 'worn with fasting, was holding up the great leathern curtain as he stepped out of the church, turning on the

scene an abstracted, cold passionless gaze, like one who had come from another world, and had nothing in common with this.

All the young men gathered round this picture and criticized it with the utmost freedom and frankness, but on the whole the general judgment was highly favourable.

"I have painted it just as I saw it," said Maurice," without altering a single feature or shade of colour."

"It is true to the life," said Camille ; and then added with a light laugh, "You had better send it to the Pope; when he sees it he will certainly get you to paint his portrait, and then Adrien's guess about you— pardon, cher Adrien ! I believe it was my guess, not yours-it is well to be correct on this point, as it may be cited hereafter as a prophecy made before the fulfilment !"

"Don't do any such thing, Maurice," said Adrien; "it is dangerous to meddle with the saints of the Church. Camille is jealous of you and wants to have you shut up in the Inquisition."

"I, jealous!" cried Camille, "No, mon cher, I am as innocent of such baseness as those pretty pigeons !" and shrugging his shoulders, he took up the remains of a roll of bread (off which and a cup of the common country wine out of a wicker-bound flask Maurice had made a thoroughly Bohemian breakfast) and began crumbling it to the fluttering cooing pigeons in the balcony. The next moment his restless eyes caught sight of the bouquet of violets, lying on the floor where the little flower-girl had thrown it.

"Santa Madonna !" he cried, "what delicious violets! the largest and sweetest I ever saw, and with the morning dew, still on the leaves. Where did they come from Maurice ?"

"Violets ?" said Maurice, "I know nothing about any violets except those faded ones in the glass yonder. Where did you find

them ?"

"In the corner near that stone vase, al

"Try if there's a billet-doux concealed among them, Camille," said Gustave. "Nonsense!" said Maurice; " Camille must know where they came from."

"Perhaps from that beautiful girl in the blue mantle, who is so like Fornarina, and who dropped the rose at your feet as we came out of the Sistine Chapel," said Alphonse.

"Or, perhaps, from the blue-eyed English girl, with white rose-buds in her bonnet, who always blushes when she sees Maurice," suggested Adrien.

beautiful as you are, Maurice, would not choose a fairer flower-nymph."

"Never mind," said Maurice, "I have my whims." And taking the violets from Camille he put them carefully into water.

He did not think it necessary to tell his friends the history of his acquaintance with little Gemma, which, however, was simple enough. The first time he saw her she was kneeling beside a basket of trampled flowers and crying so bitterly that he could not help stopping to find out the cause of her grief. Her basket had been knocked down and the flowers trampled to pieces by a pair of horses that had run away from an English groom. "And, oh, Signore," said the sobbing girl, "I gave the last baiocchi I had for those flowers, and I walked six miles

"Oh, I could name a dozen bellissime Signorine, every one of whom I have seen looking at you with admiring eyes on the Corso, on the Pincio, in the galleries, in the churches, at the festas, every where; ready to throw themselves as well as their bouquets at your feet, and I am certain these others could name as many more. Is it not so, camarades? Every fair lady who comes within the influence of Maurice's beaux yeux meets the fate of the moth that flies too near the candle."

Maurice answered in a similar strain, and a quick fire of jests and repartees was kept up, till Gustave cried out, "A truce, a truce. Have mercy on Maurice, Camille, and I will tell you who left the violets here. was little Gemma, Maurice's pet flower-girl. Julien and I saw her coming out of the house as we came down the street."

It

"Oh, little Gemma!" said Camille, Maurice always buys flowers from her; but I acquit him of trying to make a conquest of poor little Gemma. She is far too ugly. If it were not for her great black eyes, so bright and so restless, she would look like a

all spoiled, and my poor mother is sick, and she has no one to do anything for her but me."

Maurice gave her money to buy another basket, and more flowers than she had lost and, hearing from a bystander that this girl's devotion to her bed-ridden mother was beyond all praise, he never afterwards met her without giving her money and kind words, and receiving in return her choicest bouquets and most grateful smiles.

"And is this one of your whims also ?" asked Adrien, bringing forward a picture which he had found at the other end of the room covered with some white gauze drap ery.

It was a picture of two girls sitting in an alcove canopied with climbing roses, a crim son cloak drawn like a hood over the heads of both girls, their hands holding it closely round their faces as if they were sheltering under it from a light sun shower which was passing over. One girl had magnificent black hair and large dark eyes; the other was blue-eyed, and her hair, which had part ly escaped from the light green net which confined it, was of a pale yellow. Thes

"You speak as if you were talking of a living woman, and not a mere picture," said Maurice, half amused, half vexed.

"I know she is a living woman," said Karl, "but where? I should like to know." "Ah!" said Maurice, turning away, "that is my secret."

"A secret," cried Camille, coming back from the balcony where he had been feeding the pigeons again, "what secret? What has Karl been saying ?"

"He has been talking German, that is all," said Adrien, shrugging his shoulders; "I believe he has fallen in love with yonder gipsy, and is inclined to dispute the possession of the original with Maurice."

"Then there is something mysterious about that picture," said Camille; "I thought there must be, Maurice looked so ferocious when you uncovered it. Let me look at it again. Why, she is hideous! The little fairhaired one is a hundred times better. If she had more colour and roundness she would make a very passable Aurora, and then her companion would be an excellent contrast as dusky Night."

"But tell us the story attached to this picture, Maurice," said Gustave, "for it is easy to see there is one."

"I shall leave Camille to invent one," said Maurice, "mine, if I were to tell it, would be much too commonplace to be believed in by such lovers of the marvellous as the present audience. Now, if we are going to the festa we had better be off."

But before he left the studio, Maurice carefully put away the picture which had been so unceremoniously criticized, vainly trying to banish the vexation he felt at the unflattering comments on Marguerite's looks which all the young men, except Karl Rudorff, had made. And he was still less pleased with Karl's remarks. To know that so acute an observer as the young German had read in Marguerite's expressive face

hood annoyed him more than he liked to confess; and it was still more disagreeable to have heard another voice so confidently declare that it was not really love—“love in all its passion and power," the love of the poets, and of his own dreams—

"Love at first-sight, first-born, and heir to all," which he felt for his betrothed.

CHAPTER IX.

UNDER THE ROSES ONCE MORE.

HE four years of Maurice's residence in

TH

Italy had passed quickly with him. He had studied earnestly and worked hard. His pictures had been much admired by all the connoisseurs in Rome, and one large oneBeatrice sending Virgil to the aid of Dante

-on which he had bestowed much labour and thought, and which had been purchased by an English nobleman for a large sum. had been exhibited in the Pantheon, and had won for him a diploma from the Roman Academy. Full of pride in the triumphs he had achieved, and of confidence in the bril liant career which seemed to spread before him, he set out for Paris.

On a lovely evening in August, just at the hour when he had paid his first visit to Mar guerite, Maurice entered the picturesque ok street and knocked at Christian Kneller door. The street, the buildings, the light and shadows all seemed the same as whe he had first seen them, except that then was spring, and now summer was almo over. The door was opened by Mère Mon ca, in look and costume precisely the sam as she had been four years ago. seemed to have no power over her pleasa vivacious brown face, and as to her dres she had never changed its fashion since s first wore woman's garb, and never wou till she was dressed in her grave-clothes.

Tim