I have rivals, I know,--rivals who are more powerful than the poor artist.

Are they also more favored ?" Isabel blushed faintly, but her countenance was grave and distressed.
Looking down, and marking some hieroglyphical figures in the dust with the point of her slipper, she said, with some hesitation and a vain attempt to be gay, "Signor, whoever wastes his thoughts on an actress must submit to have rivals.

It is our unhappy destiny not to be sacred even to ourselves." "But you have told me, Isabel, that you do not love this destiny, glittering though it seem,--that your heart is not in the vocation which your talents adorn." "Ah, no!" said the actress, her eyes filling with tears, "it is a miserable lot to be slave to a multitude." "Fly then with me," said the artist, passionately.

"Quit forever the calling that divides that heart I would have all my own.

Share my fate now and forever,--my pride, my delight, my ideal! Thou shalt inspire my canvas and my song, thy beauty shall be made at once holy and renowned.
In the galleries of princes crowds shall gather round the effigy of a Venus or a saint, and a whisper shall break forth, 'It is Isabel di Pisani!' Ah! Isabel, I adore thee: tell me that I do not worship in vain." "Thou art good and fair," said Isabel, gazing on her lover as he pressed his cheek nearer to hers, and clasped her hand in his.