Would that more of your sex could be found thus delightfully employed." "Alas, sir," she replied, adroitly misunderstanding him, for Miriam did not lack readiness, "in this poor work there is little to admire.

I am ashamed that you should look on the rude fashionings of a half-trained girl, you who must have seen all those splendid statues of which I have been told." "By the throne of Caesar, lady," he exclaimed in a voice that carried a conviction of his earnestness, staring hard at the bust of Ithiel before him, "as it chances, although I am not an artist, I do know something of sculpture, since I have a friend who is held to be the best of our day, and often for my sins have sat as model to him.

Well, I tell you this--never did the great Glaucus produce a bust like that." "I daresay not," said Miriam smiling.

"I daresay the great Glaucus would go mad if he saw it." "He would--with envy.

He would say that it was the work of one of the glorious Greeks, and of no modern." "Sir," said Ithiel reprovingly, "do not make a jest of the maid, who does the best she can; it pains her and--is not fitting." "Friend Ithiel," replied Marcus, turning quite crimson, "you must indeed think that I lack manners who would come to the home of any artist to mock his work.