We shall see her again, I pray my stars; but if we don't, I shall have done something I never expected to--I shall have had a glimpse of ideal beauty." He sat down again and went on with his sketch of the Juno, scrawled away for ten minutes, and then handed the result in silence to Rowland.

Rowland uttered an exclamation of surprise and applause.

The drawing represented the Juno as to the position of the head, the brow, and the broad fillet across the hair; but the eyes, the mouth, the physiognomy were a vivid portrait of the young girl with the poodle.

"I have been wanting a subject," said Roderick: "there 's one made to my hand! And now for work!" They saw no more of the young girl, though Roderick looked hopefully, for some days, into the carriages on the Pincian.

She had evidently been but passing through Rome; Naples or Florence now happily possessed her, and she was guiding her fleecy companion through the Villa Reale or the Boboli Gardens with the same superb defiance of irony.