Half-way down the steps stood the lad, pencil and tablet in hand, sketching.

Let us look over his shoulder: it is his father's likeness,--a countenance in itself not very remarkable at the first glance, for the features were small; but when examined, it was one that most persons, women especially, would have pronounced handsome, and to which none could deny the higher praise of thought and intellect.

A native of Provence, with some Italian blood in his veins,--for his grandfather, a merchant of Marseilles, had married into a Florentine family settled at Leghorn,--the dark complexion common with those in the South had been subdued, probably by the habits of the student, into a bronze and steadfast paleness which seemed almost fair by the contrast of the dark hair which he wore unpowdered, and the still darker brows which hung thick and prominent over clear gray eyes.
Compared with the features, the skull was disproportionally large, both behind and before; and a physiognomist would have drawn conclusions more favourable to the power than the tenderness of the Provencal's character from the compact closeness of the lips and the breadth and massiveness of the iron jaw.

But the son's sketch exaggerated every feature, and gave to the expression a malignant and terrible irony not now, at least, apparent in the quiet and meditative aspect.

Gabriel himself, as he stood, would have been a more tempting study to many an artist.