There was little doubt that many of them felt a genuine kindness for the shy, brown-haired, delicate young foreign maiden, who had flown from some distant land to alight upon their tower, where she consorted only with the doves.

But their energy expended itself in exclamation, and they were content to leave all more active measures to Kenyon, and to the Virgin, whose affair it was to see that the faithful votary of her lamp received no harm.
In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhabitants might be, the concierge under the archway would be cognizant of all their incomings and issuings forth.

But except in rare cases, the general entrance and main staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the street, of which they form a sort of by-lane.

The sculptor, therefore, could hope to find information about Hilda's movements only from casual observers.
On probing the knowledge of these people to the bottom, there was various testimony as to the period when the girl had last been seen.
Some said that it was four days since there had been a trace of her; but an English lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather of opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with a drawing-book in her hand.

Having no acquaintance with the young person, she had taken little notice and might have been mistaken.